Creative Moves: Creations
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Craft Foam Printing

6/30/2021

 
A simple print in blue and white of mountains, a lake, sunshine, and birds
A video tutorial! How to make prints using craft foam - fun and easy!

Supplies

You will need:
Craft Foam
Stylus tool (a ball point pen will work as well!)
Ink
Craft Knife (or scissors)
​Roller Tool/brayer
Paper to print on!

How-To

-Create a "frame" on your craft foam with the stylus. This will be the size of your print.
-Trace your design on the foam with the stylus. Usually going over it twice will be sufficient. The parts you press down with the stylus will be the parts that don't get inked. 
-Use the craft knife or scissors to cut out your printing block
​-Tap ink all over the printing block
-Press down on paper, and use a roller tool or brayer to press down all areas evenly
-Carefully pull up printing block and enjoy! Accent with markers, colored pencils, or paint if desired.

Toss a coin to your crafter:
Venmo: @CreativeMoves 
Paypal.me/CreativeMovesUS

Teapot Bead Tutorial

6/25/2021

 
Picture
I'm a little teapot, short and stout! A cute little bead or pendant for the tea lovers! If you learn best via video, you can watch below, or scroll down to get the text and pictures tutorial. Or you can utilize both! Yay different modes of learning! (The video had to be sped up in places so it wouldn't be super long, so there is some motion blur happening - just something to be aware of if that is going to bother you! ) This assumes a beginner-to-intermediate knowledge of working with polymer clay.
Three small blobs of clay, a needle tool, combination clay shaper and embossing tool, wallpaper scraper blade, scalpel, and bottle of liquid clay on a speckled grey background
YOU WILL NEED:
Three colors of polymer clay
(One will be the body of the teapot, one will be the petals of the flower, and one will be the center of the flower.)
Needle Tool
Clay Shaper
Embossing Tool
Sharp Blade (I use a wallpaper scraping blade)
Sharp Knife (I use a scalpel, but a craft knife would also work)
Liquid Polymer Clay
ALSO (not pictured)
Acrylic Paint
Index Card
Wire
Paint Brush
Aluminum Foil
Baking tray and parchment paper

Instructions

Six pieces of blue clay in graduated sizes above a silver ruler
​Thoroughly knead and roll your clay to condition it. Roll into a snake and cut six pieces from your main/background color. One large, and two medium(ish) pieces for the teapot body, three smaller pieces for the lid, in decreasing sizes.
     
     (This picture is just to give you a very general idea of size. Ruler is in inches. You may have to adjust the amount of each clay piece as you go - as with all things, it gets easier with practice! And hey, it's clay - if you don't like how it looks you can squish it all up and start again before you bake it!
Three pieces of blue clay laid out on a grey speckled background. One is curved into a S shape with spirals, one is a flattened square with rounded corners, and one is a teapot spout shape
A blue polymer clay teapot made from the three pieces in previous picture.
Roll and shape 3 of the pieces into a teapot body, handle, and spout. (Sorry there's no magic formula here, ya just gotta squish the clay around until you are happy with how it looks.     
    
     The handle and spout both start as a snake and then get shaped, the teapot body starts as a sphere that you then flatten and shape a bit.)
    
     Using liquid clay to reinforce the joins, attach the handle and spout to the teapot body. Smooth with clay shaper tool.
Three pieces of polymer clay: Two rounded rectangular ones and a round one
The three pieces of clay in previous picture put together to form a lid
​Shape the remaining three pieces of clay into a lid, and then using the liquid clay to reinforce the attachment, put it on the teapot:
A blue polymer clay teapot (miniature/bead sized) on grey speckled background
​(I find it also helps to put a little bit of texture on the top of the teapot with the needle tool before attaching the lid.)
One hand holds a blue teapot bead, the other inserts a needle tool through the lid
A hand gently holds a teapot bead while a needle tool is inserted from bottom to top
​Pierce a hole in your teapot, so it can be a bead! Now, in my early bead making days I remember searching high and low for "The Trick" to making good bead holes. "The Trick" is that there is no trick. Only practice. Sorry. However, that being said, I can give you this advice:

- Use a drilling motion, don't try to just ram your needle tool through.
- Start on one side, go halfway, start from the other side and try to meet up with that hole and go out where you started. (This is  a bit tricky at first, but is helpful to master to get a nice straight hole)
- Use a clay shaper tool to tidy up the entrance/exit points a bit.

IT'S BAKING TIME!

Here's a secret (it's not really a secret:) You can bake polymer clay more than once. So if you, say, wanted to make a teapot bead with a pretty applique flower on it you could bake the base first, and then go back and add the flower. It's much easier that way, and you don't have to worry about inadvertently squishing things you did not mean to squish!

     I put a piece of parchment paper on my baking tray and cover it with aluminum foil, and then bake at 300F for an hour. This is what I've found works best for me over many years, you may want to check the instructions on your clay packaging. (In general, baking it for longer than the recommended time is fine, getting much above the recommended temperatures can burn your clay and release nasty fumes.

     (Burnt clay fumes are BAD. If it should happen: turn off oven, turn on fans, move tray somewhere outside, move yourself away from fumes until they have dissipated. If you're careful, it won't happen often, but I have had it happen a time or three.) Oven thermometers are your friend. So is good ventilation.  I bake enough clay in a year that I have a dedicated convection oven out in our converted garage studio. For occasional use, your home oven is fine.)
A snake of brown clay and pink clay being cut into very small pieces. The blue teapot bead is in the corner.
A blue teapot bead on a grey speckled background with a pink flower with a brown center added to it.
Rub a thin layer of liquid clay onto the teapot body to help with adhesion of your flower. Cut 1 small piece of clay from the flower center color (I like to use a tan or brown color) And 8 pieces of the flower petal color. Roll the flower center into a little ball and press onto the center of the teapot.

     Roll the flower petal color clay into a small rounded triangle shapes and press around the flower center. (For me it's easiest to do the top, bottom, and sides first, and then go back and add the ones in between.)
One hand holds the teapot bead while the other uses an embossing tool to press small circles into the flower center.
One hand holds the teapot bead while the other presses a needle tool in the middle of one of the pink flower petals. The rest of the flower petals have also been textured in this way.
​Texture the center of the flower with the embossing tool. Texture the flower petals with the needle tool.

Bake! (again)

A blue teapot bead with pink flower is in one corner. In the other corner a fluted metal tin holds diluted acrylic paint. At the bottom there is a stiff bristled paintbrush.
A white piece of paper is folded into a long M shape

WE ARE ALMOST DONE! Hurrah!

   Antique the bead if desired. (Brush diluted acrylic paint in brown or black all over bead, making sure to get into the cracks and crevices. Using a somewhat stiff brush is best. Then wipe off most of the paint except for, you guessed it, the paint in the cracks and crevices.)
     Fold an index card (or other stiff piece of paper- about card stock weight) in an accordion fold to hold the bead. Put the bead on a small piece of wire, use a soft brush to give it a coat of liquid clay, and then prop it on the baking cradle with the wire. (The wire will touch the index card on both the "peaks" of the paper. The bead won't touch the paper and will hang in the "valley." It's at about 6:45 in the video if you need to see to get a good visual.)
and now...

WE BAKE!
(Yes, again. It's the last time. I promise. Because when it comes out of the oven, it is...
ALL DONE!
(Well except for putting it on a chain or a cord or using it in whatever awesome piece of jewelry you are going to make!)

Toss a coin to your crafter:
​Venmo: @CreativeMoves
Paypal.me/CreativeMovesUS

Coming Soon...

6/25/2021

 
A website upgrade means I can host DIY videos here without worrying about annoying YouTube ads! I will be moving tutorials here slowly in the next few weeks, in the meantime you can still visit http://makemesses.com

    Projects

    All
    Bullseye Cane
    Checkerboard Cane
    Craft Foam Printing
    Fashion Doll Tutu
    IttyBitty Bunting Beads
    Jellyroll Cane
    Packing Tape Bookmark
    Picture Frame Pendant
    Polymer Clay Canes
    Snow People Ornaments
    Squishy Sand
    Teapot Bead Tutorial


    Looking for old projects?
    I will be slowly improving/updating and adding them here, but until then you can find them here:
    http://makemesses.
    ​weebly.com/projects

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