Wow! I am just overwhelmed at the wonderful response the Bird Beads have gotten since Cynthia Tinapple featured them at Polymer Clay Daily yesterday.
As of this morning, I had 2,747 new hits on the flickr site and 985 new hits here at the blog, and many new visits to the Etsy store. I just wanted to thank all my friends, old and new, who visited the PCD site, my flickr photostream, and here at the blog; and especially those of you who left the wonderful comments, and everyone who emailed me with your congratulations and support. It has been a huge boost to my confidence and I'm very excited about new design ideas featuring the vintage bird images. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!
The plan was to go home last night and start making new Bird Beads for the Etsy shop out of the clay I blended Monday night, about three pounds worth! Well, you know what they say about those best laid plans? I learned a valuable lesson: While Studio by Sculpey clay offers a wonderful color palette for Bird Bead backgrounds, it is not the clay for Bird Beads. It is just too soft. I made this agonzing discovery after transferring about 20 images to the conditioned clay. Even after letting the clay rest all night Monday night and all day Tuesday, when I started to form the beads, it was immediately clear that the clay was too soft to hold the images intact.
The thing about image transfers is that you can't handle them too much, or you get distortion. When I first started doing transfers on polymer clay, the Studio seemed to be the best choice to use, but I wasn't manipulating the images around corners back then, either. Studio is just too soft for the Bird Beads, and I am sad to report Bird Bead Batch #2 will never see the light of day.
The good news is, I conditioned and blended some Premo clay last night. I had already switched from Studio to the metallic clays by Premo and Kato for most of my image transfers anyway. I should have listened to my inner voice this time, too, but those colors called to me. Oh, well. Batch Three is on the agenda tonight!
4 comments:
Oh, such a bummer! Been there, done that with bead-making problems. I was wondering, could you mix Studio Sculpey with Kato Translucent or another color to get a firmer clay yet still have the color from the Studio clay? I haven't tried Studio by Sculpey yet, but I just adore the colors. After trial and error with Fimo, Premo and Sculpey III, I always use Kato. Except for some conditioning issues, I love it!
Hi, Doreen. I mixed 1 part Studio with 1 part Premo Pearl and it was still too soft. I haven't tried mixing the translucent with Studio, but I'll give it a shot and let you know.
Kato is my favorite clay, too, followed closely by Premo. :)
Thanks!
Congrats, Lynda - your work just keeps getting more and more lovely!
Laurel Steven
Thank you so much, Laurel.
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