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 Please visit the National Polymer Clay Guild website. |
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| Polymer Clay
Polyzine Copyright 2000-2004 Raleigh, NC ISSN 1534-1038 All Rights Reserved. |
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A Tutorial By Laurel Nevans |
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Step 13: Using your blade or exacto knife, cut away the portion of the clay cone from between the two bottom points of the star. Trim any jagged edges, and gently smooth with your finger. Flip over and repeat on other side. |
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Step 14: Cut small pieces off your mokume gane sheet scraps. Use these pieces to fill in any spots on the cone that may show. (I filled in around the sides of the top points of the star at the top of the cone.) |
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Step 15: Reinforce the back of any protruding star points with scraps of your mokume gane sheet to give your star extra strength. Smooth any placed you added scraps with your fingers to blend. |
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Step 16: At this
point, place your cone on top of a bottle. (I put my cone on top
of a small glue bottle.) Reshape the star with your fingers,
where necessary. Also, blend and smooth star with your fingers,
where necessary. Let star sit on bottle overnight, to allow raw
clay to better fuse together. Before firing, check star.
Blend any spots that need it. Reshape if necessary. If any
cracks, holes, or "bare spots" are apparent, use small pieces
from your mokume gane block to cover/fill in. (I use the handle
of my exacto |
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| knife to roll any small pieces to
roll small pieces of mokume gane on to the star.) When star is
shaped/covered to your liking, take off of the bottle, lay star/cone on
its side on a piece of white paper, a manila file folder, or polyester
batting, and fire according to the manufacturers directions. For maximum translucence, place piece in a cool oven, begin timing when the oven reaches temperature, and allow piece to completely cool down in oven. Alternatively, you may dunk the hot item in an ice water bath when you remove it from the oven after firing. (Be aware that the "ice water dunk" method may warp your star.) Since I use Premo clay and an air-convection oven with an auto-shut off timer, I placed my piece in a cool oven, set the timer for 35 minutes, and took it out about 2 hours later. |
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Step 17: When piece has cooled, carefully remove manila cone from center. Place tree topper on top of your tree. |
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Here's a shot of my Christmas Tree, with my brand-new, hand-made Mokume Gane Star tree topper adorning its top. (Note that this tree has been decorated with hand-made, polymer clay ornaments, including translucent mokume gane stars and hearts.) |
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| I hope you enjoyed this tutorial,
and that it will inspire you to create your own polymer clay tree
topper. If you prefer, you may make this tree topper with opaque
and/or metallic colors. You may use other shapes if you do not
care for stars. Any left over scraps from your Mokume Gane sheets
can be used to make fan
pulls. If you need instructions on how to make a mokume gane
block, please see my Ocean
Mokume Gane Tutorial. |
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