Once the clay is warm and you can knead it, the fun begins.
Clay Beads
You can make marble beads from polymer clay following the instructions in Beading Basics. After you’ve gotten the hang those, you might like to try making some more advanced types of beads and other jewelry pieces. I recommend Creative Clay Jewelry: Extraordinary Colorful Fun: Designs to Make from Polymer Clay to take the next step and a few more besides. To make a more advanced bead, try this project.
Project: Clay Beads
Level: Easy Age: 5 and up Materials needed: Polymer clay in various colors, rolling pin, knife, skewer Directions: Experiment with this technique of making canes (they don’t have to be round, either) and putting them together. You can try putting them side by side and wrapping them with an outer layer. The smaller the canes, the fancier the design. Try carefully compressing several canes so there aren’t any spaces and stretching the composite snake, starting from the center and working out, until your “snake” is longer and thinner. Then begin making your slices. What does that do? Look at beads that have been made from polymer clay in bead stores and pictures and see if you can figure out how they were made. Play together.
