Christmas Pud Necklace Tutorial

Phew, this autumn has been crazy. I've done my first few craft faires, juggled through a few shops, sold a ton on Etsy thanks to the new credit card payment system, and have been generally working my little behind off!

I'm behind on non-CC content, and one of the first things I knew I wanted to do for you guys was a tutorial, so here's one I've had planned for a while- Christmas puds.

This tutorial is also a companion to my Christmas Pud Necklace kits, so anyone buying those looking for a photo tutorial, you're in the right place!

This tutorial can be used to make a variety of different pud things, simply scale to the desired size as needed. In these photos, I make a chunk 1" pud for a pendant.

I have made my puds a few different colours over the year, but I've found a roughly 2:1 ratio of brown to red clay looks the best. If you only have a small bit of red clay (from the kit, etc), pinch off a pea-sized piece of red clay and leave it to the side- you’ll need this later! Blend the remaining red clay with all of the brown clay to make the body of your pud.

Roll the red-brown clay into a ball. Texture it with a toothbrush, or by rolling it on a piece of low-grit sandpaper. Set aside.

 

Condition and roll out/flatten some white clay.  Shape to a irregular round shape (think ‘splat’) or cut it to shape with a craft knife. I was making several puds at once here, so I have three 'splats' cut out. Make them as big or as small as you like.

Soften the edges with your fingers - once satisfied, place the clay on top of the red-brown pud base. Gently push it into place, working around the edge of the 'splat' in a circle.

Blend green and black clay together. NOTE: Start by blending just a VERY TINY bit of black clay and add more in tiny bits as needed, depending on how dark you want your holly leaves to be. You really will need almost no black clay to start, and none if you prefer a bright green.

Thinly roll out the dark green clay and cut two holly leaves. Cut a rectangle shape, and then slowly notch the ends and sides until you are happy with the shape. Gently scratch a line down the middle of the leaf for detail.

Place your holly leaves on top of the white ‘cream’. You can choose to either have them lie flat of give them a bit of lift.

Condition another small piece of red clay, and make three holly berries to place between the holly leaves! The easiest way to get them all the same size is to roll out a long skinny snake of clay and cut equal sized pieces from it before finishing the pieces into a better spherical shape.

Once your berries are placed, decide how you want the pud to hang, and use a sharp needle to poke a hole. I put mine in at a slight angle so the pendants show off the holly a bit better.

You can also slice one pud into two before adding the holly and berries to make two pud halves. These work great for post earrings and brooches.

Bake according to packaging instructions (110 degrees C for 30 minutes for FIMO) and varnish if desired, and you have a great little necklace that will be the perfect addition to your Christmas jumper! 

To buy a kit for this, send me a message on Facebook or give me a tweet! Is there anything else you'd like to know how to make? Any other kits you'd like available? Let me know!

Roll up, roll up! Crafty Creatives Box #16

I have been neglecting you, dearest blog readers. The past few months have been crazy with seasonal preparations for craftiness, but the good thing is that after this coming weekend, my main deadlines will be past, and aside from commissions, I'll be able to devote my time to blog posts and other crafty fun!

Last Wednesday, I got my latest Crafty Creatives box, and I've already had a break from my own crafting to play with it a bit.

The theme for this box (number 16, wow!) is Victorian Circus!

The art card is by Luke Spooner who also did last year's October box- definitely a flair for the creepy here.

I'm always drawn to these little bits the most, it seems. Some pretty purple glass beads and those printed buttons are great.

I think my favourite thing in this whole box was this tin of little circus stamps. They're less creepy and more cute, and I can't wait to have time to play with them a bit!

And this month's kit was to make a kitsch animal pendant necklace- as you can see I've already had a bit of fun playing with mine! I added a purple bell from last year's Nostalgia box, some glitter from the Blue box, and put him on a keyring instead of a necklace-- I want to put him on a handbag!

And here's a rundown of everything in the box.

• Art Card by Carrion House
• CC Kit: Kitsch animal pendant
• 4 stripey buttons
• circus stamp tin
• strand of purple glass beads
• 3 mask pendants/charms
• admission tickets- I got red and orange!
• 2 double-sided craft papers
• Materials for extra coaster kit including:
• two plain coaster
• sheet of tattoos (I got dragons)
• reversed circus images
• Stix2 PVA glue

I wasn't blown away by this box- but it's growing on me. Even though the kit wasn't really 'me', I had a lot of fun playing with the hot glue gun, and am happy with how it turned out. The stamps as well are a really great and I'm looking forward to have a moment to play with them.

Hopefully I'll have some blog entries for you after this weekend, and as I have a lot of CC kits yet to finish for my yearly goals (9?!), I'll have some entries showing those off soon.

Crafty Creatives box 15!

Wow, this month has been absolutely crazy so far. I have not had a second to sit down and craft apart from making more new displays for my things at the shop, and those were late-night panic-filled endeavours! I have however been acquiring a few crafty things, some of which work perfectly with this month's Crafty Creatives box!

Can I just say I was way too excited to see more new surround paper? This stuff is always neatly packed into my 'paper crafts' box for future use!

This month's box was 'Monochrome'! I have been working on covering my (currently unused) keyboard tray with a monochrome sharpie doodle and I've been looking at lots of inspiration lately- this art card provides even more! I can't wait to get this one up on the wall.

More felting in this month's CC kit! I have to say that while I'm ever-so-slightly sad that it's not a new skill, I'm happy to learn to 3D felt! This will be a fun one to do, and I know that the felting kit Woodland box was extremely popular (it's one of my personal favourites!)

I am a little bit crazy when it comes to collecting little notebooks/sketchbooks/what-have-you and this made me squeal a bit! The pen and pencil are of a beautiful quality as well so I'll be sure to fill this little book with lots of sub-par attempts at drawing, but I'll love it!

And here it is all out as usual:

• Art card by Jo Newham
• CC kit: felted sheep
• double-sided domino beads
• graphite pencil
• polymer clay rose
• mini blackboard peg- I love this!
• Stabilo Sensor pen
• Crafty Creatives doodlebook
• tea bag folding squares
• sheet of Aubrey Beardsley prints
• black and white sewing pins
• fat quarter of black and white fabric

It's a great box- while I love boxes with a strong theme, I think that this box (and the Blue box) provides such a good opportunity to get seemingly-unrelated items together, and it all looks so great together. I love that this box has so many crafty essentials, and that though the kit is a skill I've already been taught by the CC gals, it's another level up. I'm also interested to try the tea bag folding as I'd never even heard of it before now!

But of course, I am not one to leave things black and white... so I took my newly-bought pile of brightly-coloured Sharpies to my fabric... and I love it even more.

July in review

Don't you love finding little 'treasures'? I came here thinking I'd post a different entry and found this one left unposted! So, without further ado- a quick roundup of what I worked on in July (besides a large string of Crafty Creatives makes, of course!)

School in the UK ended in July, so apples were in order- I made these big chunky apple pendants and some half-apple brooches, which went down well with the teachers!

A few bulk orders for July as well- first up was this big pile of charms and keyrings for a school fete- the school's emblem is some oak leaves and acorns with a cross, and the children loved them.

I also made these cute badger earrings (and some charms for bracelets) for the North East Essex Badger Group! They were so so teeny!

Technically I made these starfish last winter, but I only re-found them this summer and turned them into earrings and this tri-pendant necklace. 

Now this was a fun commission. A nice chunky pendant, I made the outside of the box with some layered red and white clay, and carefully shaped each piece of popcorn as it went 'in' the box!

And on the non-foody side of commissions, this little sun pendant went to a little girl who I hoped loved it just as much as mine did!

These, along with pandora-style charms, were another new idea for the month. Pearlescent clays and stamps made some pretty cute pendants!

I also had a request for 'just a pear'- no jewelry findings, just the little pear. I couldn't decide on a size, so I sent both!

I did a few other things, which will be viewable in my shop once my little break is over- and this month has already been very productive!

I'll leave you with the goal and movie/book pages for both June and July- I'll be back on Monday with a quick and easy but fun tutorial!

Tutorial: polymer clay pretzel necklace

Using pastels to colour polymer clay is something that I've seen done a lot but never tried. I tried it recently with some burger charms and saw good results, so I thought I'd incorporate it into this month's tutorial- pretzels!

For this you'll need only a small amount of clay (I used Fimo Soft #7 caramel, lightened a bit with white), some sienna pastel, and, if you have it, glass sugar! 

Make a long 'snake' of clay- thicker if you want a soft chewy-looking pretzel, and thinner if you want a crunchy-looking pretzel!

Make a 'U' shape with the snake, and then bring the tops of the loops back down onto the bottom of the 'U', crossing over each other. Don't worry if it's not a perfect shape as you can fix it later. Very carefully flip the pretzel over, using a tissue blade if you want to, and trim the ends as long or as short as you like. If you want your pretzel to look softer, gently press down on the places where the clay meets, otherwise just give them a quick touch to make sure it all holds together. Reshape the pretzel now if it's not quite how you want it.

Here's the fun part. Using a craft knife, scrape the top of the pastel chalk, leaving some dust. Pick it up with a paint brush, being careful not to take too much at once.

Very gently apply it to the pretzel. The pretzel looks more real if you don't cover it too thickly or too evenly, so don't worry about it too much. Keep a piece of clay from the scraps next to you as you do it- I found this helped me gauge how dark my pretzel was going, as it was hard to tell sometimes!

You can see the change in the colour here- I did four pretzels and this was the darkest one. 

Leave the back of the pretzel un-chalked- if you have bits of unwanted chalk dust clinging to the back, it's easiest to scrape or sand them off after the clay has baked, or you may risk smearing it around more than before! Bake your clay now.

If you want your pretzels to look salty, get some of this. It's fake salt/sugar for crafts, made from glass so it doesn't distort when baked with polymer clay. I found mine cheaply on Etsy. A little goes a LONG way.

Varnish the pretzels, and as soon as you varnish the tops, sprinkle a little bit of the craft salt on top so it sticks to the wet varnish. Let it dry, and then add another thin layer of varnish to help secure the salt so it won't brush off when worn.

I liked my fat soft pretzels better when I was doing the first steps, but when finished this skinny pretzel was by far my favourite. Once the varnish has dried, all you need to do is find a big enough jump ring to go around one of the loops of the pretzel, and it's ready for a chain!

These were very quick and easy to make, and just look how CUTE the necklace is! If you can't find craft sugar, you could probably also make salt by grating a piece of baked translucent clay, but it won't be quite as translucent as this glass sugar.

I have a few tutorials to catch up on- so if you'd like to see me attempt anything new or show you how I do something, please let me know! <3