Faux Enamel Cloisonne (Polymer Clay Tutorial)

Hello dear polymer clay enthusiasts!

I’m still into the enamel fascination and this time I want to inspire you to create even more elaborate pieces of jewelry using a faux Enamel Cloisonné technique.

This is Wikipedia’s definition of Cloisonné –  Cloisonné (French pronunciation: [klwazɔne]) “ is an ancient technique for decorating metalwork objects, in recent centuries using vitreous enamel, and in older periods also inlays of cut gemstones, glass, and other materials.” It is called this way, because the idea of the cloisonné is to make small compartments using thin gold or silver stripes (that are visible in the final design) and in which they would add the enamel powders or gemstones or other materials.

The very interesting thing about Cloisonné is that you can encounter this type of metalwork technique in Ancient Egypt and then it evolved during the Byzantine Empire and it is a technique that is still widely spread in modern jewelry making as well.

I have to say that I had a terrible time using this type of gilding foils so I want to warn you about the possibility that not all gilding foils are compatible with polymer clay.

As a piece of advice: when starting your project, you should decide if you want a little bit of black showing through in the final design (creating an interesting contrast) and in this case you should use black polymer clay, or you can decide to color everything and for this you can use any color of polymer clay or even better scrap clay.

As a recommendation, please don’t use your best and most expensive stencils for this technique, you might not be able to clean them very well with warm water and hand washing soap (foil scraps will stick to the glue from the back of the stencil) and I don’t want you to ruin your best stencils.  You might want to try making some stencils using paper or cardboard and your craft knife (I think a very simple design would work just fine for this technique).

Also I wanted to tell you that I noticed that I said polymer clay when I should have said gold foils (several times in the video), so I’ll drink my coffee before editing the sound for the video next time:)

MATERIAL LIST

• Polymer clay about 100 gr. (the color of your choice) – I used black Cernit polymer clay
• Pasta machine or roller
• Flexible blade
• Rigid blade
• Round mini-cutter and square cutter
• Gilding gold foil
• Stencils
• Texture plate
• Fimo gold metallic powder
• Eye shadows in light colors (blue, green, pink, purple) or mica powders
• Diamond Glaze
• Transparent Varnish (I used Cernit Transparent Varnish)
• Oval jump rings
• Eye screw pins
• Chain and a lobster clasp
• Paint brushes
• Kato Polyclay
• Fimo liquid
• Weldbond adhesive
• Optional: rhinestones and tiny crystal beads
• A needle tool

I hope you’ll be inspired by the Faux Enamel idea and by this technique and I hope you’ll make beautiful pieces of jewelry that will express your own vision.

My best to you!

Mihaela

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