Salaric

This is one of my geo-vases that were inspired by my undergraduate petrology classes (looking at rock forming minerals under a microscope).

I made this vase by covering a hi-ball glass in fimo (polymer clay) and then baking it so the fimo went hard.

I created the swirly texture by squidging my selected colours of fimo to make them soft. The colours I used were:

*Red *Orange *Glittery gold/yellow *Green *Blue *White

I then rolled each colour into a sausage, except for the white, which I rolled into a number of sausages as it was to be mixed with all the other colours!

I then took the blue sausage and mixed it with a white sausage, the half and half sausage was then folded in half and in half again, and rolled back into a thin sausage. I then sliced the sausage up into mm thick discs. I did the same for the other colours, mixing each with white to give some sort of continuity to the vase.

I then started at the top of the glass and squidged two layers of the blue and white discs around the glass. I made sure that the fimo was squidged over the rim. I then did two layers of green and white, followed by two layers of gold and white. Then the orange and white – again orange and white. With the red and white, however, I just covered the rest of the glass in it, as it was mostly the base of the glass.

I made sure the fimo on the base was slightly thicker than the rest of the vase as this is where I sign them by slashing my signature into the fimo with a sculpting tool. I then rolled another glass around the vase to smooth the fimo as there are always lots of fingerprints present in the surface.

I then scraped around the rim of the vase to remove the excess fimo whilst leaving the rim covered neatly.

I then baked it in the oven for half an hour (30 minutes) at 130 degrees C.

I made this monitor decoration for my mum. I used strange almost fluorescent-coloured polymer clay, specifically fimo soft. I used blue for the base, pink for the flower and yellow for the middle. Also needed was a green matchstick for the stem and a sticky pad to turn it into a monitor decoration!

I shaped the blue fimo into a cone with the top slightly flattened, about 1.5cm in diameter at the base. The pink fimo I rolled into a sphere and then flattened it into a rough rose petal shape. The yellow fimo I rolled into a short fat sausage shape with very rounded ends.

I then wrapped the yellow sausage in the pink petal shape to create a flower that looked a bit like a lily.

I then pushed the green matchstick into the bottom of the flower and rolled the area to push the fimo in firmly and neatly around the stick.

I then punched the other end of the matchstick into the blue cone.

I then baked it in a pre-heated over at 130 degrees C for 1/2 hr (30 minutes). Once it had cooled, I pulled the stick out of the blue cone base and then added a bit of glue (UHU) on the stick and poked it back in the whole. This is necessary as the stick would eventually work itself loose, otherwise if it puts up a fight don’t worry about it!

Once the glue had dried I put a little two-sided sticky pad on the bottom so that it can be stuck to the computer monitor!

I made this little Easter basket for my husband’s birthday; it is made of fimo and is about 7cm in diameter. The fluffy chicks came from the Pound Shop.

These are the colours I mixed for the browns to make the twigs: dark brown, yellow, orange and beige.

I then rolled a sphere of the beige to make the base of the nest with.

I then began to flatten it into a disc.

I then rolled sausages of the different brown fimos – these are the twigs!

Then I pressed them gently around the edge of the base, making sure that the first ones arched a bit in the middle, leaving ‘free space’ to allow interweaving of the twigs.

I then chose three bright fimo colours – pink, blue and yellow, for the Easter eggs to go in the nest.

I sliced up the colours and then arranged them so that each egg would get one piece of each colour in different orders and patterns.

I then rolled the three colours into a sphere. I applied slightly more pressure to one end of the sphere whilst rolling it, in order to get the egg shape.

I only did three eggs in the end, as I thought it would look better when it was less crowded and with some fluffy chicks instead!

Ta da!

I made this Easter bonnet from fimo. There was no specific reason behind this project, I just had some extra fimo and in fact was going to make it into a pot but whilst shaping it, it turned mysterously into a hat!

First off I rolled the black fimo into a ball.

I then began shaping this ball into a hat shape. I did this by initially making a depression on the top of the ball and then pinching around this depression with my thumb and forefinger whilst rotating it.

I then had a satifactory hat shape!

I decided that I wanted a nice ribbon and some flowers on the hat (I did consider Easter chicks and the like, but the hat is actually quite small, so decided that though it might be a bit more Eastery, it was also a lot more fiddly).

I rolled a thin 0.5mm diameter sausage of yellow fimo for the ribbon and I also rolled some little balls of fimo to be the middles of the flowers. I then flattened the sausage of yellow fimo and fitted it around the hat, making sure the two ends overlapped and were shaped so that they looked like ribbon blowing in a breeze.

Warning, fimo and other polymer clays are quite brittle and therefore thin structures like the ribbon will be relatively fragile. This is why I made sure the ribbon would have contact with any surface the hat rests on.

I decided that three flowers would look good and rolled 2 balls of blue fimo about 2mm diameter, and one of pink. I gently used the pad of a finger to squash these balls into little discs.

I then placed the yellow bits of fimo in the middle of these discs and gathered them up in three to four little pleats around the yellow. This makes very effective little flowers.

I then put the flowers on the hat by gently pressing them onto the ribbon.

However, it looked over the top so I took two of the flowers off and the result was a lot more eye-pleasing in my opinion!

I made this pot of gold for St. Patrick’s Day for an Irish friend.

First off I got some black fimo and rolled a ball/sphere out of it, about 1.5cm in diameter.

I then made a slight depression in it – this would be where the gold coins would sit. I realised that I would not have to make a hollow pot as the coins cover up the black fimo underneath.

I then rolled three small spheres of black fimo about 6mm in diameter for the feet. I checked them against each other to see if they were all the same size. One of them was too far out, smaller than the other two, so I had to add some extra fimo. I then gently pushed the three small spheres onto the large sphere with the depression in, and the feet went on the opposite end to the depression. I had to reattach one foot as it was it was not equidistant from the other two, and in fact I didn’t get the feet completely right.

They should have been placed so that they make an equilateral triangle – ie so they are all the same distance apart – but I was in a rush so was not careful enough.

I then rolled a thin sausage of black fimo, making sure it was of uniform thickness all down its length. Using the pot itself, I measured around the depression with the fimo sausage and pinched off any extra sausage. I then attached the two ends of the sausage to each other. I smoothed and rolled the join so that it was no longer visible. This is a bit tricky and can end up with you twisting the sausage or ending up with thin and thick bits in the sausage, it takes a bit of practice!

I then place the rim on the pot, made sure it was in the desired position, and gently pushed it onto the pot to secure it.

I then rolled two tiny sausages of black fimo for the handles, about 5mm in length. I also tapered the ends of these sausages so that they ended in points.

I then curved them and pushed one gently onto the side of the pot, just under the rim. I checked to make sure that the handle was suitably aligned with the feet, and then repeated the process on the opposite side with the other handle.

I then broke off little bits of gold metallic fimo and rolled them into little balls. I flattened the balls between my thumb and forefinger to create little 3mm discs or coins.

I then laid these in the pot, making sure that all the black was covered underneath so it looked full of gold, and just to make it look more like it was overflowing, I made sure that one of the coins was overlapping the rim of the pot.

I then baked it in the oven for 30 mins (1/2 hour) at 130 degrees C. This hardens the fimo or polymer clay.

I make fimo vases by covering glasses in the stuff! I always check new types of glass by giving them a dummy run in the oven with no fimo, just in case they crack.

For valentine’s day I made this heart vase:

I started off by mixing up blue and pink fimo; I do this by rolling each colour into a sausage. I then put them next to each other and roll them into one sausage – now half blue and half pink in cross section. I then folded the sausage in half, rolling it in my hands so it smooths into a nice sausage. I repeated this two times to get the desired interlacing of blue and pink fimo.

I then cut slices from the sausage – I try to go for 1-2mm, but it doesn’t need to be that accurate if you do not want a regular pattern. I then place all the ‘discs’ of fimo next to each other in a very distorted square; then I use my fingertips to squidge the discs together. A hi-ball glass then serves as a rolling pin and I made sure I rolled in different directions to try to get the pressure even across the glass. Otherwise you end up with a wedge of fimo – thick at one end and thin at the other.

I also picked the sheet of fimo up and turned it over regularly, otherwise it sticks to the surface it is being rolled on. I sometimes have to use a modelling tool to help me lift up these sheets. A thin, flatish blade is best. I use the rule of thumb that if the sheet starts to distort when lifted, then rolling it any thinner will make it too thin and useless.

I then selected one of my heart cookie cutters (metal), and I chose the wider of the two for purely stylistic reasons – ie I was going to use a tumbler glass which is short and wide, so I thought the shorter wider heart would look better! The heart is approximately 8cm wide.

I cut a heart out of the blue and pink fimo sheet and then gently laid it on a glass. Making sure I was happy with the position I gently pressed it onto the glass – checking that as few as possible air bubbles remained between heart and the glass (you can see this by looking on the inside of the glass) by gently pressing it on. Be careful not to press too hard or you will distort the heart’s shape!

I then baked the glass – 130 degrees C for 30 mins (1/2 hr).

I then got some grey granite mix fimo with glittery flecks in it; I squidged it about first to make it soft enough to handle. I did the same with same yellow/gold glittery fimo. I then rolled them into sausages and cut discs off them. So I now had grey stone fimo discs and yellow fimo discs.

I pressed the grey granite discs in around the heart to give it a nice border and I then decided that it would be better to have a mix of the yellow and granite. So I scrunched all the yellow up again to make a sausage, which I mixed with a grey granite sausage. I only folded it about four times to get the effect I wanted. I cut it into discs and then put it on the vase around the pre-existing grey layer, blending it into the fimo already on the glass.

I then thought that two verticial strips either side of the heart would be nice, so I mixed up some sausages of metallic gold fimo and dark blue, folded them together and cut it up into the little discs. Making sure I had the glass so that the strips would be the exact opposite of each other on the glass, and be nicely positioned either side of the glass, I laid the discs on the glass and pushed them down so they stayed on.

It was only once I had done this and looked at the effect I decided that it looked completely wrong. I took my penknife and cut down the side where the blue and gold pattern had fused with the grey granite and yellow. I then scraped all the unwanted fimo off and later made beads and things with it.

For the remainder of the vase I used alternate layers of grey granite and the yellow granite mix. I continued the strips underneath the base of the glass and also made sure there was an overlap of fimo along the rim of the glass.

Once the vase was completely covered, I signed the bottom by slashing marks into it lightly so that they didn’t go all the way through. Then using a long, flexible angled plastic blade from my sculpture tools, I removed the excess fimo from the inside of the vase by running it along the rim.

Then just to smooth the fingerprints out, I rolled the hi-ball glass around the outside to smooth it. I then put it on a baking tray and baked it in the oven for 30 minutes at 130 degrees C.

Spell check coming soon, along with colour ref for the fimo and links.

Click on the photo to see a bigger version.

We used this sort of thing at our wedding and I have made a mix with stars etc… for my cousin’s 18th birthday.

These are flat polymer clay (fimo) hearts approximatly 1cm across. I mixed the colours and textures I wanted, then rolled out a flat sheet of fimo. This can be done either with a rolling pin, preferably glass, or by using a pasta machine. I tend to just use a glass tumbler or some such as I’m too lazy to set the machine up.

I then use the heart aspic cutters (mini cookie cutters) I got from Almond Art who predominantly cater for sugar crafts. With the cutters, I cut out as many hearts as possible. Sometimes, one of the more flexible plastic sculpting tools I have, has to be used to tease the shape from the cutter or from the surface it has adhered to, ie sometimes they get stuck inside the aspic cutter and sometimes on the chopping board I use. The chopping board should ideally be untextured glass, though mine’s a beaten up old wooden one – warning, fimo stains such surfaces.

I then laid these hearts on a baking tray. When I have sufficent things for baking (at least 2 trays as I hate using the oven inefficiently) I pre-heat the oven to 130 degrees C. Whist the oven was heating I scrunched up any excess fimo, rolled it into a ball and rolled it flat to cut a few more shapes out.

I then baked them for 30 minutes. Warning, when the fimo comes out of the oven it is hot and is also still soft and malleable, so don’t go prodding it! Wait for it to cool. Also you may have to use the sculpting tool to help you ‘ping’ some of the hearts off the baking tray!

I have a tendency to use these hearts for many other craft projects as well, and have even sold them as craft materials!