Striped Pattern Polymer Clay Sheets

00:00:03 –> 00:00:08 Hi Guys! This is Cindy Lietz, your Polymer Clay Tutor in today’s Studio Tip and I’m going

00:00:08 –> 00:00:16 to show you how to make a Striped Pattern Polymer Clay Sheet. Now, I have some leftover

00:00:16 –> 00:00:23 sheets of silk screened clay that I had done a tutorial on just last week and I thought

00:00:23 –> 00:00:29 I could show you a really neat little tip for taking–whether it’s silk screen sheets

00:00:29 –> 00:00:36 or different-colored polymer clay sheets or different techniques, say like Mokume Gane

00:00:36 –> 00:00:44 Sheets, even Mica Shift or patterned background sheets that have like rolled out cane slices.

00:00:44 –> 00:00:51 Any kind of sheet of clay can be made into a striped sheet that looks really unique and

00:00:51 –> 00:00:55 you have–and it’s not a whole lot of work. But there’s a really neat little tip, I will

00:00:55 –> 00:01:02 show you how to do it. So what I’m talking about is, here is a striped sheet that I have

00:01:02 –> 00:01:10 made using this sheet that I made last week and it had two different colors of paint on

00:01:10 –> 00:01:16 the same color of clay and they were silk screened on. And I have cut it and stacked

00:01:16 –> 00:01:23 it in a way where it looks like a striped sheet. Now, I’m going to show you this technique

00:01:23 –> 00:01:27 with these other colors of clay here because I think they’re so pretty and I wanted to

00:01:27 –> 00:01:33 use them in another project. And I’ll just show you how to do it. All you need is some

00:01:33 –> 00:01:40 sort of smooth, hard surface, a glass mat like this is perfect but a ceramic tile would

00:01:40 –> 00:01:49 be fine too. And you need a couple of different colors of clay sheets. Now, I’ve got a beautiful

00:01:49 –> 00:01:54 pink and gold silk screened sheet here that I’m gonna use and I think it’ll look really

00:01:54 –> 00:02:03 lovely with this Robins Egg blue and gold sheet here. What I’m gonna do first is I’m

00:02:03 –> 00:02:09 just going to trim up the front sides of these, just put these other ones away actually so

00:02:09 –> 00:02:18 I’ll have more room to work. OK, so I need a nice, straight edge on this sheet here and

00:02:18 –> 00:02:23 I’m just gonna cut it off with my blade. If you’ve got a clay blade that is stiff, it’s

00:02:23 –> 00:02:28 gonna work better than a really flimsy one but you can usually hold this–a flimsy one

00:02:28 –> 00:02:34 firm straight. And this one is already cut straight so that’s it. Now, all I’m gonna

00:02:34 –> 00:02:40 do, now you wanna make sure that they’re not stuck down to the surface too hard on these

00:02:40 –> 00:02:44 stages ’cause you wanna be able to lift them off and I’ll show you what I mean. So when

00:02:44 –> 00:02:49 I come in here and I’m gonna take a strip of this clay here and I can do whatever width

00:02:49 –> 00:02:55 I want depending on what style I’m doing but I’ll do kind of a skinny one and I’ll just

00:02:55 –> 00:03:01 cut it down and then pull the blade forward. And now the strip is stuck to my blade, just

00:03:01 –> 00:03:07 like that. And when I stick it down to my surface here, and make sure it’s kinda stuck

00:03:07 –> 00:03:15 down. Then I’m gonna do the same thing to my blue sheet. So, I’m just gonna take a stripe

00:03:15 –> 00:03:21 and I can do a thick one, a thin one, doesn’t really matter. Just gonna kinda pull it forward

00:03:21 –> 00:03:27 and then, see it’s a little loose there but that’s OK. Now, I’m gonna butt it right up

00:03:27 –> 00:03:34 next to the previous one that I did and stick it down. Now, if you kinda–the first kinda

00:03:34 –> 00:03:39 rows are not stuck down to the glass, that’s stiff yet but I’ll just start building up

00:03:39 –> 00:03:46 the rows, you can really push on it that way. And then I’ll just grab another one and I

00:03:46 –> 00:03:53 can alternate the thicknesses, I could alternate the–I can also do a neat little thing. Well

00:03:53 –> 00:03:59 here, these patterns are pretty simple but say this was a striped sheet of clay, you

00:03:59 –> 00:04:06 could take your next bit and you can shift them this way or shift them that way and that’s

00:04:06 –> 00:04:13 how you can do a really cool Bargello kinda style. So you just butt it up next to it and

00:04:13 –> 00:04:21 you keep going back and forth until you have a really cool sheet of clay. Now, I’m working

00:04:21 –> 00:04:29 with sheets of clay that are the same thickness but you could also do this technique with

00:04:29 –> 00:04:35 ones that were different thicknesses, it would have a very bumpy look on the front but it’s–it

00:04:35 –> 00:04:40 would be another look that you could get. So just do a couple more so I have a decent-sized

00:04:40 –> 00:04:52 sheet to make into something. You can make–cut these later into pendants, earrings, all kinds

00:04:52 –> 00:04:59 of cool techniques. Now, if I want this to become one good solid sheet, then what I’m

00:04:59 –> 00:05:06 gonna do is just grab a sheet of parchment paper. You could use a deli sheet or you could

00:05:06 –> 00:05:12 use plain paper. The nice thing about the parchment and the deli sheet is that it–you

00:05:12 –> 00:05:16 can see through it. You can rub it down with your fingers, you can use the back of the

00:05:16 –> 00:05:24 spoon, you could use a roller. Try not to stretch it unless you want to or you can also

00:05:24 –> 00:05:30 use–I love to use this–this is a burnishing tool. This is a little tamping tool for pressing

00:05:30 –> 00:05:36 espresso down into my espresso machine. It is really nice, you can get it really really

00:05:36 –> 00:05:40 clean so I can use them back and forth and not worried about that. But it’s got a lot

00:05:40 –> 00:05:45 of weight to it, it’s super flat and super smooth so it makes a great burnishing tool

00:05:45 –> 00:05:51 for pressing down the layers without distorting the clay underneath too much. That way, you

00:05:51 –> 00:05:58 can really bond those little strips of clay together. You can also continue to push it

00:05:58 –> 00:06:03 back and forth. You can cut it–I kinda like this jagged edge, it looks quite neat so you

00:06:03 –> 00:06:10 could do all that kind of thing with it and make some really cool striped pattern sheets

00:06:10 –> 00:06:16 using all kinds of leftover clays, patterned clays, like I said, any kind of–you can even

00:06:16 –> 00:06:20 use just plain clay if you wanted to. You don’t have to get all fancy but I think it

00:06:20 –> 00:06:24 looks really cool that way. So I hope that was a helpful tip and that you liked this

00:06:24 –> 00:06:30 video, do let us know if you did and if you have a suggestion for a technique that you

00:06:30 –> 00:06:36 don’t understand how to do, a product you’d like me to demo, a book you’d like me to review,

00:06:36 –> 00:06:42 any kind of thing you’d like me to do a video on, leave your comments in the comment section

00:06:42 –> 00:06:48 below and also, don’t forget to check out all of our tons and tons of videos we made

00:06:48 –> 00:06:54 just have the answer all ready for you. So we’ll you next time and bye for now!

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