Vol-054 Faux Jasper Cabochons PcT Tutorial (Intro)
Video #309: Take your $5 cabochons to the $40 level by following some simple and important advice!
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** This post is an introduction to one of our paid tutorials.
I have said this a Gazzilion times, but one of the coolest things about polymer clay is that you can make it look like just about anything! And that includes doing a great job of imitating real stones.
One type of semiprecious gemstone that is particularly fun to copy in polymer, is Jasper. It is fun because there are so many forms and colors of Jasper, that no matter how yours ends up turning out, there will be a type of Jasper that looks exactly like it!
Just Google ‘Jasper Cabochons’ and you will see what I mean. There is Red Jasper, Brachiated Jasper, Picture Jasper, Ocean Jasper, Fantasy Jasper, Leopard Jasper, Butterfly Wing Jasper, Poppy Jasper, Morrisonite Jasper, Willow Creek Jasper and probably a million more kinds that I didn’t see at first glance. I even found a Spiderman Jasper! My guess is that if the stone is pretty, and you don’t know what it is called, it probably is a Jasper!
Oh btw, here’s a tip when you are searching on Google for a Jasper stone of a particular color way, first type in ‘Jasper stone’ or ‘Jasper Cabochon’ or something along that lines into Google images. Don’t just use Jasper alone, cause because that will include a lot of info about Jasper National Park, which is an incredibly beautiful Canadian National Park in the Rocky Mountains near the BC and Alberta include (we’ve been to it many times).
To narrow your search by color, scroll down the page until you see the colored squares under the heading ‘Any Color’ on the left-hand side of the page. This will just show you the Red stones, or the Blue stones, etc. which can really help with your choosing of the color palettes you would like to use for your own Faux Jasper Stones, in addition to the versions I show you in this tutorial series.
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Hi Cindy, I'm loving learning from you. Your way of teaching makes claying fun again. I'm hooked on the best drug around... Polymer Clay and your Tutorials! What a way to live and love in the South. Thanks again for your help with getting my account straightened out. You rock!
Susan R
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Cindy, your Faux Jasper video series did strange things to me... it made me so very happy! I have used it two or three times lately and have gotten some beautiful results. You do affect people's lives in a positive manner. Keep doing it! Sincerely.
Athalyn R
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Hi Cindy, I love your videos on making a faux jasper cabochon. You explain things very well, and don't skip any steps. It is an absolute joy to watch you work. I feel like I just attended a class I should have paid $100 for. Your work is truly amazing.
Karen R
Transcript coming soon...
Transcript coming soon...
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Where do you buy your premo in bulk amounts?
Hi Laura, The cheapest place I know of to get the one pound blocks of Premo is at this SculpeyProducts website.
Hope that helps!
There’s also Sunny Day Crafts in Florida who have 1 pound blocks of Premo for $10.99 – that’s the price when I checked just now. It pays to compare shipping costs as well as clay costs from different suppliers as that can make a big difference… unless you’re lucky enough to live in the same town and can pick it up :-))
Maybe some of our fellow clayers know of good prices too?
Elaine, thanks for your kind words and encouragement! Yes, my daughter would make a great quality control expert. She’s such a fun little thing.
Yesterday I remembered that Cindy had said something about making the little loops at the top for the bail into an oval by spreading the pliers apart inside and that straightened out the wonky look of it, so now I like it even more. I didn’t think of using the pym II for this. I did try to go over the metal lightly with some Renaissance wax, although of course I can’t reach all the areas in between or behind the wires very well. I haven’t used the Pym II very much yet, and I was a little afraid it would give too much of a fake shine to the cabochon. Maybe I should play with it more and actually see what it’s like instead of hiding it away in a drawer and saving it :D
I am so sorry to hear that your clay things are all in storage! What a bummer! I hope you will be able to play again soon. Also a bummer that the clay is so expensive in the UK. Makes me even more appreciative of my supplier!
I’ve never done much with wire or wire wrapping, but it sure is fun! I just love the hammered brass that I did. Unfortunately it’s pretty hard wire of a hardware variety. I’m going to have to wait until I can get some thinner gauge so I can do a messy wrap at the top to disguise the end there. It was too hard to wrap with this 16 gauge hard stuff. The silver one is just artistic wire. I thought I should start cheap since I don’t know what I’m doing. It doesn’t look the greatest, but I’ll sure wear it!
One thing I noticed is that in handling the pieces to get the wire on the shine I had buffed up so nicely dulled out quite a bit to a matt finish. I hit them with the jooltool buffing wheel again and they shined up pretty good, but I don’t think they’re quite as shiny as they had been before. I was thinking if I ever sold pieces I might offer free buffing for a lifetime or a certain number of years, but I’m not sure how complicated that would get. I’m nowhere near being ready to sell much anyway but it’s an interesting thing to think about especially knowing that if they’re handled much the shine will dull down. I wonder if I maybe used too much Renaissance wax or not enough wax, or if that doesn’t make a difference at all. Does that happen to you Cindy? Or anyone else?
Hi Katy,
Kids are amazing and notice every little mistake we make. I loved your daughters comment about not tugging when she saw a bubble in your finished work. She will make a great quality control inspector when you start selling!
Your wire wrapping looks pretty cool to me. I started off using cheap wire to practice, but it is a little hard on the hands. Have you considered using PYM11 after you have achieved the shine on your finished metal? A little goes a long way and can be used on many other materials, ( as Cindy demonstrates) Again, with Ren Wax, use just a tiny amount.Leave the wax to dry before buffing it off. You are lucky to buy your 1LB blocks of PC at such a bargain price. Here in the UK we have to pay nearly double, but they are still a saving in comparison to buying the smaller amounts.
I am missing playing with clay as all my craft tools etc are in storage, but have had time to design, plan and look back on the video library as there are a few tutorials I never completed, either I didn’t have the tools or supplies, or just never got around to doing them. I see you have become an addict, me too. As to offering a lifetime free buffing service, (everyone likes something for free) so it might hook in your new customers for life, with lots of repeat orders……..cheers…. but one maxim that my Father always used to say is “Quality over quantity”, which I have found has helped me over the years.
Lol! You are so sweet! I don’t know if there’s a secret exactly… I just love it! I’m so glad I found polymer clay! Usually I hop from hobby to hobby, but this one has stuck like glue for at least 6 months now… Feels like longer, but when I was reviewing pictures I guess I wasn’t doing clay till late last spring or maybe summer…
Buying my clay in big 1lb blocks make me feel like it’s ok to experiment because I don’t worry I’ll use up all my pricey (relatively speaking) small blocks of color. I still have some small ones from a multi pack I bought, but mostly I just mix colors from the ones offered in the large sizes. That limits me a bit Im sure, but not enough for me to mind. That’s a big part of feeling good about jumping right in. I used to do that with beads all the time. When I was beading I would go out and buy beads and then be unsure of a project I wanted to use them in. And because I wanted to save my precious beautiful beads for the perfect project, they just sat in containers. But that resulted in me almost never using any beads except for crummier ones and then not really liking my project. If budget is an issue for others like me, I’d highly recommend buying the big blocks of colors you use often on eBay. My lady only charges $11.26 U.S. for each block and even though I sometimes order 6 blocks at a time she only charges one flat rate shipping fee. (not sure I should plug a specific seller here, but if allowed I don’t mind sharing that too) When the budget allows I want to buy more of the smaller colors and work on some actual color recipes too, but for now this is working out well.
But otherwise it’s just that I LOVE working with the clay, I love learning, and your tutorials are so fantastically detailed and clear and you end up with such lovely things! I am SO pleased with my decision to invest in myself and my new(ish) love of polymer clay through your tutorials!
***** A Budding Artist *****
Okay, I’ve gotta tell you this one last thing. My five-year-old daughter often works with clay with me. She has a little spot next to me and is miraculously good at using only small amounts of clay over and over before she settles on an item to bake so she doesn’t even cost very much. Anyway she ends up watching a lot of your tutorials with me, even months ago before I became a member. Her favorite part of every video is the very end with the last picture of you and Doug. She always wants to pause it before it goes on to the next video so she can admire your ROSE earrings (I called them flowers once and she was very disappointed in me) and say how nice you look. Apparently she pays very close attention to what you say because the other day as she was rolling her clay she said “Oh! I got a little bubble, I just gotta give it a little tug!” And then yesterday I was making these Jasper stones and when one came out of the oven with a little bubble she scolded me a bit for not tugging :D
Hi Katy I just LOVED reading about you and your daughter, claying together! How wonderful! Tell her that I am very proud of her and that she is an excellent listener. Because she pays such good attention, she will learn very fast and be an expert clayer very quickly! And she is very correct about the tugging to release the bubbles. I would love to see pictures of her pieces some time!
This is just a handful of the things she’s done. That top thing that’s green with red is supposed to be Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. Although the red sort of looks like antlers it’s actually the red light coming out of his nose. Don’t ask me how the rest is supposed to be a reindeer, I already got in trouble for asking her that. Then you have a mushroom and a rainbow fish and hot dog that’s blue, an oval pendant with some texture from the little stamps we made, a ring, the Snowman, some “tangled snake beads” (her name for designer babies) a little cake covered in diamonds with little green Diamond feet that make it stand up off the tile and various other things. The leaf that she used a plunger cutter for has a caterpillar pressed into it using a ball tool. She came up with that idea herself and it’s absolutely adorable! She’s so much fun to work (play!) with and I’m delighted she enjoys it so we can spend so much time together (doing something I love too!)