poinsettia part 5

OK so now you have your completed cane. Now what? Well I will now show you how I finished off some pendants. First I made a Skinner blend that went from dark blue to light blue. I kept the blend thin (3 - 4 inches from darkest to lightest) I cut off a portion of the blend and wrapped gold foil around both sides. I then ran this thru the past machine several times to work the foil into the clay. (remember to maintain the skinner blend) The first ones I made taught me a few things not to do on the next ones.
First I made my slices too thick. Polymer clay artist Lynne Ann Swartzenberg says she can get a ridiculous amount to slices off an inch cane. I can see now why that is important. My first slices were too thick and they kinda got smooshy when I applied them to the background. Thinner also keeps you from getting bumps where the canes are applied.
Second The first ones I surrounded with scrap clay before rolling in. Later I decided this wasn't necessary.
You can see that I added some poinsettia leaves and holly leaves and berries. I didn't go over how to make them but if you search the net you can find many tutorials on making leaves. One thing I did try with the holly leaves was reducing them with play dough. This worked well for maintaining their shape. I didn't slice them until they were reduced and I didn't take the time to soak off the play dough which I should have done. Oh well it's all about learning.
I used the completed sheets to make pendants/pins.

TRICK - since I didn't soak off the play dough and some slices were too thick I was having a little problem getting the slices completely integrated into the background. There was a persistent groove around some of the slices. I discovered that if I put a thin coating of liquid polymer it filled in these grooves and made the sanding go much smoother. For some reason I couldn't quite get a super shine on them but I was happy with the look (and the less sanding).

I have also posted some photos of some dimensional pendants that I made with the canes too. I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and that you all have a very Merry Christmas.