Mica Shift That's Not Sliced or Squished and Faux Tooled Leather Tower Beads

I've been working on a new tutorial on how to achieve mica shift without slicing and squishing in a pasta machine. I made several mica shift pieces to include as examples in the tutorial's gallery and thought I'd post them here, too.











I also made these tower beads (my invented term for the square cylinder beads, if you will.) While I was working on the mica shift pieces, my eye get wandering to some red clay I had mixed for another project but didn't use. The blend is Alizarin Crimson and Premo Cadmium Red, and it produces a beautiful tomato red color. I lightened up on the crimson this time around, and got this delicious, fiery hot cayenne red color. I immediately thought of Moroccan leather and Spanish mantillas and stopped right in the middle of working on the mica shift pendants (I know, I know, this freakin' tutorial is never going to get finished that way!) and made a small batch of beads so I could get the need for red out of my system.





I love these. They are so romantic looking. I think these are going in my challenge entry for July, the theme of which is "Faux." Now for a pendant to match, or sort of matches, since I used all the clay I mixed in these. I never learn, do I?





Tonight, I am going back to the Studio by Sculpey clay. I have a love-hate relationship with Studio, it's way to soft for me, but I love the colors and I have a few things in mind that I want to try with it that require a suede-like finish, so we'll see. More about that project later.