Glow in the Dark Rainbow Jellyroll cane

This is a neat cane which I learnt from one of Cindy Leitz's video newsletters  (I love Friday's the day they arrive!). There is a lot of excitement about this Friday's video as it is Faux Opals that look great!

I had to switch back to Fimo as I had Fimo Soft Glow in the Dark and Kato don't make one (might be worth an email suggesting that they do of course). I find the fimo so soft to work with now I don't really enjoy it.

I did for the first time ever put a cane in the freezer for 15 mins before slicing - worked a treat. The cane was nice and firm to work with after that - until it warmed up. Will have to try some of Cindy's cane slicing tips! I do need some help with slicing canes better so if anyone has some tips leave a comment or mail me! I shall make it a mission to experiment and perfect slicing canes.

Glow in the dark rainbow jelly roll cane!

So first things first I made the obligatory cane end tortoises (one from each end of the cane)

(see Polymer Passions Tutorial) 

I gave these little guys glow in the dark eyes too ;)

I then made a couple of simple cane slice beads and a couple of lentil swirl beads, not sure I swirled them enough now - oh well next batch!

Well these beads have popped into my 'need holes' box as there was no way I was going to make a needle hole in fimo soft lentils - they'd be squished up (althought I suppose I could of employed the freezer again - must try that with some scrap ones). Once they emerge from the need holes box (waiting on my husband to either drill some holes or set me up to do it myself - he's the tools guy) they will make their way to my 'need sanding' box - one day they may emerge as some jewellery....

Busy polymer clay day for all the family

We have been busy playing with polymer clay for a lot of this afternoon (me with my bad foot up on a chair and lots of pain killers). Here are some things we made

James made an X wing (from star wars)

Daisy made a spoon, I gave her the bits she is too young(not quite 4) to be making roses on her own, yet....

I made my first kalidescope cane which was originally going to cover a

base to hold some pens for gifts but I had the wrong type and they melted in the oven so I changed to making  teaspoons and used a few slices of the cane to made a bead just because and off course the cane end tortoises I now always make. See polymer passions blog  for details of how to make them.  

Here is one of the 'filament wound' spoons I made as a gift for some people I used to work with 'filament winding' . It is a composite materials manufacturing technique where you wind carbon fibre around a steel madrel to make a carbon fibre tube. This is made from fine extruded black polymer clay (fimo in this case) wrapped round a teaspoon handle that had been coated in a layer of black fimo. I think this effect would be good using some colours so I will try it out another day.

I also  made a rather large bangle! I bought the tutorial from Tonjas Treasures but hadn't printed it out so tried it from memory having read it once. Being on crutches I formed it round a glass on the table which was to hand as I can't just rumage around like I would normally. I don't have any texture plates so must get round to making some to do this next time.