How to make winter inspired beads using polymer clay, resin and embossing powders

Hello dear friends!

I had this idea in mind for several days and I can tell you that I’m very happy that I managed to turn this winter inspiration into some beautiful clay beads:)

Not to mention that I tried this idea with a larger cutter and I made a beautiful decoration (so you can use this technique to make beautiful clay beads or clay decorations for your house or for your Christmas tree).

I will show you in the video tutorial how to make the triangle bead from the photo, but you can use a round cutter and you’ll end up with a bead looking more like the other two.

I personally love the depth of these beads. Which why I wanted to take advantage of this effect and decorate the interior part of the bead with miniature evergreen trees. And they’re kind of cute, don’t you think?

The secret “ingredient” is the sparkling embossing powder that really gives a realistic look to these winter beads. And I used some embossing powder to decorate the tree and the snow under the tree (and I used the heat gun to heat set these powder), but than I sprinkled some more that I “trapped” inside resin.

UV resin…. I work with resin very often. And I love resin. Most of the time I work with two part resin or inclusion resin. Even my kitchen tables are decorated with decoupage and resin on top (that was my biggest project involving resin.) Yet, I was a little bit reluctant of working with UV resin…. because I tried it with alcohol inks and it did not cure properly. (UV resin is amazing, but you cannot mix it with some agents or it might not cure properly. ) So I put it aside. And then, I found the courage to give it a try again. And I’m glad I did. Because it worked wonderfully for this project.

Here are the tools and materials that I used in this tutorial:

white polymer clay, black polymer clay and true green polymer clay

-a triangle cutter

– a small star cutter

– round ball tools

-rigid blade

– a texture plate (to texture the back of the bead)

– silver color mica powder

– white mica powder

– an ink pen

Wow Sparkling Snow embossing powder

– heat gun

– Magic Gloss Lisa Pavelka’s UV resin

– UV lamp

– an oven and an oven thermometer

– a head pin and flush cutters

– screw pin

– liquid clay (before baking the piece) or Weldbond (after baking the piece) to glue the screw pin

– varnish and a brush

And if you liked this inspiration for clay and embossing powders, you might also like this tutorial on how to make hoop earrings decorated with a polymer clay Christmas wreath:) https://learnpolymerclay.blog/2017/12/17/wearing-your-christmas-wreath/

As always, I hope that you’ll take this inspiration and use it in your work with clay.

Happy claying!

Mihaela

P.S. You can still enroll in my free 11 day mini course on polymer clay and learn how to use molds to make your own tools for clay and to add a dimensional look to your pieces.

I hope to see you in the class!

I also wanted to remind you about the Polymer Clay Adventure 2020 that will start very soon. So, I really encourage you to start the New Year in a beautiful way and invest in yourself and in your passion and join us in the Adventure!

Join us!

I offered all my enrolled students the possibility to benefit from a free 1 hour coaching session via Skype so if you’ve enrolled, please write me at contact(at)learnpolymerclay.com to schedule a call.

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