Polymer Clay Domed Gold Tone Bracelet

The other bracelet is item number 2501. It has six much smaller cabochons than the one very large one you can see in these photos.

I'm very proud of this bracelet. You can tell from one of the rear view photos that I made it smaller temporarily by pushing one of the ends further under the cabochon than the blank was designed for. I don't know how many times that can be done without breaking the hinge which is the part on the inside of a wrist. If you don't make it smaller, it is pretty big, at least on me. It is 8 inches.

I began with a big mound of white translucent polymer clay that I'd conditioned by rolling through my clay dedicated pasta machine quite a few times. Once it was just the right size, I covered all of it with thin slices of a floral cane. You can tell that from the rear pictures.

Then I decorated my floral design with different color butterflies. By the time I popped the whole assembly in the oven between layers of polyester fiberfill, the butterflies were IN the design, not on top of it. I achieved that by rolling a paint brush handle lightly over the clay.

Because it is a high and thick mound, I baked it for thirty minutes. That is longer than usual, but I wanted the inside to be cured so the whole cab would be hard as a rock. The fiberfill protected the work from browning from being in the oven for that long. Generally I only keep pieces in the oven for fifteen to twenty minutes at 230 degrees F.

When my bracelet was room temperature, I sanded it by hand with three increasingly fine grains of sand paper. I'm finding that hand sanding for a long time is giving me a much better result than trying to rush through it with my electric rotary dremel. It really makes the translucent clay translucent, and the details in the design are refined with hand sanding.

It was so beautiful and smooth just like it was after the sanding. It did not need a coat of any kind of varnish.

Nevertheless, I haven't matured THAT much as a polymer clay artist to abandon varnish altogether, but I did lighten up. Instead of using the very shiny varnish I've been using, I gave this cab a coat of satin finish made by the same polymer clay company that makes the shiny variety.

Unless I purchase more blanks like this one, I think this is the only big cabochon bracelet of this type I'll be able to make. So, it looks like I will be ordering more bracelet blanks. I will try to get some that are seven or seven and a half inches. It is just too much fun to create a bracelet like this to stop at one.

There are some people, one in particular, out in the big wide world for whom I would like to have that size on hand. She knows who she is, and she is my polymer jewelry advocate. Thanks, friend.

It would be fun to wear this and look down into it all day if your trapped somewhere.

Thanks for coming to my shop.

Item ID: 2502