Think Crafts Blog – Craft Ideas and Projects – CreateForLess

Air dry clay is often thought of as a child’s art and craft supply, but it’s so much more than that!  If you enjoy polymer clay, you’ll also enjoy paper clay.  You don’t have to bake this type of clay as it air dries. 

Materials

• Paper clay (also called air-dry clay):  This clay air-dries, no need to heat or bake.
• Rolling pin:  To evenly flatten clay if necessary for your project.
• Wax or freezer paper
• Rubberstamps, clay tools, molds or texture sheets:  To make patterns or images into the clay.
• Craft knife, NuBlade^TM, tissue blade (or other thin cutting tool).

Step by Step

1. Wash your hands thoroughly and make sure your work surface is clean.  Clay picks up every dust or particle on the work surface and your hands.

2. Roll clay out to about ¼” thickness or thickness desired.  Stamp an image into the clay with a rubberstamp or press clay into any type of mold and remove.  Trim with cutting tool if needed.  You can also hand form or sculpt the clay.

3. Place on wax paper to dry, turning every few hours for even drying.  To avoid curling you might want to weigh down the clay after a few hours of drying.

4. You can also use this clay to sculpt.  It easily can be colored, painted, inked, chalked, glittered, and otherwise embellished. 

Using an air dry clay, Helen Bradley created this watch for Jewlery Creations #2 Magazine (CK Media) using a clay from AMACO.

Tips

• Clay adheres to most surfaces with a dab or two of glue.
• You can cut this clay while still wet or when it has dried. 
• Use a wet fingertip to smooth rough edges while clay is still wet.
• Use a fine sanding paper or emery board to smooth clay edges once clay has dried.
• You can paint, ink, or chalk a dry piece of paper clay.
• You can add paint, ink, or chalk to wet clay to color it!
• Make an embellishment for the front of a scrapbook, diary or journal.
• Another wonderful way to use your rubberstamps.  You can make buttons to coordinate your designs and projects.
• Store unused clay in an airtight container like a zip-lock plastic bag.  You can’t add water to clay to restore, once it dries out, it’s not re-useable!
• There are wonderful cutting, shaping, and design tools on the market for clays, but don’t forget that toothpicks, paper clips, cookie cutters, and pencils are handy tools too.

I found some great sites with fun projects:

Colorful Fun

Earthy Heart Pendant

Upscale Designer

Another wonderful design by Helen Bradley for AMACO. This design was also published in Jewelry Creations #2, CK Media.

I must have a ton of beads!  I’m hopelessly addicted to beads.  I buy for color; I love orange.  I buy for shape; I love tablet, oval, and round.  I buy for motif; I love fish, sealife, and flowers.  I have small beads like seed and E beads.  I have medium beads of shell, ceramic, and glass.  And I have large beads of clay, crystal, and wood.  And with so many beads, it’s easy to forget exactly what I have.

I recently just re-organized my beads because I couldn’t remember everything I had.  Because if you have beads, you most likely have all the supplies needed to make jewelry, meaning you need to keep up with all your findings!  For me the real key to organization is that the organizers need to be clear, I need to be able to see at a glance what is in my organizers!

Organization can be a bore, but somehow I’m never bored when organizing my beads.  I enjoy seeing all my treasures, touching each to feel the texture, and coordinating the colors.  I get happy all over again and think about all the jewelry I can make.  I organize first by type of bead, which usually boils down to size. And then I organize by color or metal.  It’s important that you follow your way of thinking when you organize.  If your first thought is color, then organize by color. If your first thought is that’s a glass bead, organize by material used to make the beads.

 I love the above organizer!  I like the sturdy, permanant compartments and that it shuts very securely. I’ve used organizers with adjustable compartments, but most aren’t stable so your beads end up mixing.  Adjustable organizers are better for larger items or maybe threads.

I have tons of seed beads and hated having to store them in original packages, it just made organization difficult so I was happy to find this type of organizer so I can store my seed beads by color and easily find the color I need!

How do you organize your craft supplies?  Come on!  Share!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

I’ve been very lucky in my career in crafts to have opportunities I never even dreamed possible.  I’ve sold my original crafts to the public, sold designs for publication in magazines, written books, and even developed a few product lines!  One of the most rewarding jobs is when I’m asked to be an editor.  I was the original editor of Stamp It!, a magazine for rubberstampers and card makers.  And recently I was asked to be the Editor of Jewelry Creations, a magazine filled with wonderful jewelry projects. 

It’s amazing to start with an idea, gather projects, edit the project instructions, be a part of the photography shoot, and do some final edits before the magazine is sent off to the printer for publication.  When I was asked to be a part of this great jewelry magazine issue, I turned to my friends at CreateForLess.com for some jewelry submissions and got some fabulous ones!  Jewelry Creations is now available where you buy your favorite craft magazines. 

I’m doing a little bragging because I wanted to share my joy and I also wanted other creative people to know that if you want a career or a part time income from your art and crafts- anything really is possible.  I have no formal training in putting together a magazine.  I just took every opportunity to learn new aspects of my love of crafting and worked hard to earn a reputation of being reliable.  I learned (and continue to learn) all I can about the craft industry.  When I first started the reference librarian at my local library was my best friend helping me find trade organizations, today much of that same information is now available online!  I believe it is possible to have a job you love and earn a good living from your creativity.

Here’s a peek at the cover!

Don't let that sad face fool you, Mr. Bee is a happy camper!

Pets Make Life Grand!  It’s amazing how much our pets enhance our lives!  I’ve been a pet lover since I was a kid and currently have 4 sassy dogs (2 basset hounds and 2 dachshunds). Two of our dogs are rescues, but I’m not sure who rescued who!  Recently one of our dogs lost a battle with glaucoma.  This disease is hereditary in many basset hounds.  So our Mr. Bee is now completely without sight.  My first reaction was deep sadness for Mr. Bee, but he adapted so well that I couldn’t stay upset for too long.

I immediately turned to the web for help.  I wasn’t disappointed.  A quick Google search lead to two great websites that help owners and pets learn more about how to adapt to the change in routine.

Blind Dogs, Where Dogs See With Their Hearts!

Helping A Blind Dog Navigate

Living With A Blind Dog For Dummies

One tip that helped lighten my heart was that a dog owner should wear a bell or other noisy object so the dog can hear where the owner is.  I found that Mr. Bee did get a little panicky if I left the room and he wasn’t sure where I was.  No problem at all!  I got out my beads, Stretch Magic elastic, and jingle bells.

In minutes I made a bracelets for my wrists and ankles!  Mr. Bee can hear me coming and going! It’s amazing how crafting can be such an intrical part of our lives. In so many ways crafting can bring some uplifting light to the dark situation. I felt better after making that noisy jewelry. I felt like I’d done something very positive to help Mr. Bee’s adjustment to blindness a little easier. Has crafting helped you cope?  Please leave a comment and tell us how.

We recently had this question sent to us at Ask A Question, the third button just below our Think Crafts! title banner,  ”Help! I love making jewelry, but my crimping skills are terrible, how do you crimp so that your jewelry wires don’t end up slipping away from the crimping tube or crimping bead? Is this a skill I can learn? What’s going on?”

Okay, that’s several questions, but the most important answer is that crimping is a skill that anyone can master with the right tools and practice. I can understand this crafter’s frustration because I’ve been there and crimping can be overwhelming.  There is nothing worse than putting in a few hours for a great necklace or bracelet only to have it fall apart the first time you wear it!

If you are going to make jewelry, you have to learn to crimp.  Crimping is done with a crimping bead or crimping tube, a crimping tool, and your beading wire (wire is a generic term I use for any stringing material). 

Crimping beads and tubes come in different sizes, but always do the same job, which is to secure your bead wire to your clasp.  Clasps vary too.  But no matter what type of clasp you use, the process of securing the clasp to the “body” of your jewelry piece is the same. Crimp beads and tubes are tiny, usually around the size of a seed bead. Use larger crimp beads and tubes if your finished jewelry piece is on the heavy side.  A tip if you are in a pinch and need a larger crimp bead/tube is to double crimp with a smaller crimp bead/tube!

A crimping tool is in the plier family, but has a unique “mouth”.  As you can see in the photos, the tool has several indentations along its mouth.  It’s within these indentations that you will center your crimping bead/tube, press the crimping tool mouth closed, firmly press, then release.  For some crimping beads you’ll do a second squeeze on another of the indentations to round out the crimp for a more appealing look.  You can also use crimp covers to hide a crimp bead.  You need to apply just enough pressure to crimp the bead or tube around your clasp securely, but not so much pressure that you break the crimping bead or tube.

I found some great crimping tutorials for you:  Video &  Step-by-Step Photo

My best tip for crimping is to practice.  Buy a package of crimping beads or tubes and just practice the skill over and over until you feel more comfortable with the technique.  Do you have a crimping tip to help others?  Let’s hear it!

Here are some photos of different crimping tools.