Stacy Burrell: Okay, everyone is joining the class. Welcome, everyone. Welcome to the Michaels community classroom you are here with with Cara. I'm from female, and I apologize. I've, I've forgotten your, your, your handle
Kara Whitten: If you wouldn't mind saying it.
Stacy Burrell: Quickly Carla. Carla.
Kara Whitten: Kind of she
Stacy Burrell: Kind of she yes
Stacy Burrell: This is Kara from Kailua chic and she is going to work with female clay today. We're really excited to get started.
Stacy Burrell: I'm just a reminder, everyone that this class is being recorded and will be available on starting Saturday on michaels.com slash classes and we have more great classes.
Stacy Burrell: coming shortly. We have a bunch of classes that you can you can sign up for it. Just go over to that Microsoft com slash classes and without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to Kara.
Kara Whitten: Alright. Hello, everybody. Thank you so much for joining me. This is my first Michaels digital classroom. So we had a little key some kinks to work out before you guys came in.
Kara Whitten: But I'm excited to show you all about the CMO leather effect polymer clay. So this is an oven hardening clay, just like
Kara Whitten: The rest of females line of polymer clay. But this is the leather effect. So it actually has some unique
Kara Whitten: Qualities once it's baked. So a few pieces here that I've already rolled out and baked and as you can see it's very, very flexible, which makes it great for doing certain things like
Kara Whitten: clutches. This whole bag with made with the female mother effect clay, the tassel the key chain, the wrist strap all of it, so it's
Kara Whitten: And I'll be showing you how to make something similar to this one here today, along with these tassels a little bit later, but this. So again, it's an oven hard to do. So once when you have it.
Kara Whitten: When you open it from the package. Let me just show you the texture. It's really like this polymer clay that you're used to, from female lover. I made it a little bit, but it's very soft. So it's kind of like the females thought
Kara Whitten: Was it like the female kids version. Definitely a lot softer than the professional
Kara Whitten: But as you can see, it's, it's almost like I would say like a kids clay and not as soft as played out. But it has this really cool texture in it. So if we do an overhead. Maybe we can kind of
Kara Whitten: Show some of the texture close here and kind of see if not smooth. It's actually got this very cool leather looking
Kara Whitten: Texture and
Kara Whitten: I think that's actually made from cellulose fibers that are in the polymer
Kara Whitten: Clay. So, and then once it's fake it retains that leathery look in the durability of leather and other fun
Kara Whitten: Qualities of it, or that you can actually so it, you can. So this with a sewing machine or by hand. We show you one of these clutch at this clutch that I made actually marble the clay like you would
Kara Whitten: The regular polymer clay. But as you can see here, there are actually I use my sewing machine on the basting stitch, which is the longest stitch links.
Kara Whitten: To stitch on a zipper and it's to stitch the clay to itself. So you have a little dipper pouch that you made out of it, which is really kind of cool because you can do it in any
Kara Whitten: Colors. They have so many different colors here. I can run through a few of them. But you can create that marble effect. And so it, which was fun.
Stacy Burrell: And we show you the car.
Stacy Burrell: We have a question from Doris. She asked how door. How adorable, would you say is the clay.
Kara Whitten: So I'm definitely once baked depending on what you're using it for. So you can do leather beads or I have like these earrings that I've made with the clay. I'm the very soft, very durable. Now the bags.
Kara Whitten: There's different techniques. So this one that stone actually feels a lot more durable. I mean, you can see I'm like squishing it all up. It's not breaking. If not, you know,
Kara Whitten: It bends and it goes right back. So it works really well. One thing that I have noticed if it's some of the bags that are folded. You want to make sure like this has a folder along the bottom instead of a stone edge.
Kara Whitten: You want to make sure that your leather is an appropriate thickness. If it's too thin, it can crack. If it's too thick.
Kara Whitten: So, and I'll talk more about that, whenever we get to the clutch making portion
Kara Whitten: But it's definitely very durable. So just like regular polymer clay when you bake it, it does get hard but the finish sheets are very flexible and multiple so it's not, you know, you can see here like
Kara Whitten: You can't do that regular polymer clay. So that's really kind of a cool unique feature feature of it.
Kara Whitten: Um, so I've already talked about the leather look that you can that it's bendable that it's sellable you can, once you
Kara Whitten: rolled it out and baked it, you can actually punch holes in it with either like a leather all or any any sharp tool. I'm not even used a hole punch.
Kara Whitten: And then you can cross stitch on it, which is fun of the fun detail for a bag or a key chain who crossed it somebody's name or embroidered on it.
Stacy Burrell: Because another question. Do you need to fake it before starting to so
Kara Whitten: Yes, so I will kind of go through this step by step, but I've found that for most of the projects that I've made from the tassels to the bags.
Kara Whitten: I even made the usernames and the bangles, these are like ankle bracelet. I baked the clay. First, why rolled it out into sheet like this and then I baked it because it's so soft, it's hard to
Kara Whitten: Really get the shape that you want without, you know, giving it being deformed when you go to put it on the baking sheet, unless I guess you're using a piece of parchment. They can just transfer directly but I found that it is better to bake it, and then form it
Kara Whitten: So you get some instruction book.
Kara Whitten: I did my say
Kara Whitten: All of these claims and to have these played kits are they what Michaels. This is a tassel kit that will be talking about today, and I'll be going through
Kara Whitten: How to Make a tassel with the clay. They also have this fun boat kit to make a little hair bow.
Kara Whitten: Little mother haircare bow, which is fun. And then we have all of the colors. So I believe that our 12 colors I of course love the bright and vibrant one we've got like a coral and cobalt blue neon pink mustard yellow a lime green. And then we also have the neutral zone we
Kara Whitten: Got
Stacy Burrell: We have a couple of people asking how much, how many bars of claim would you use for for a clutch.
Kara Whitten: For the clutch.
Kara Whitten: I used to for the body of the clutch and then a third break for the tassels and the closures.
Kara Whitten: So that play is about 349 a break. So that comes out to, you know, less than $10 for a clutch, which is a really good price. I think, you know, for something that you're crafting the you can completely customize
Kara Whitten: So they also have some more natural colors like a terracotta a brown leather white a gray black and white lighter like butter creamy yellow color.
Kara Whitten: So there's quite a few colors to choose from. One other fun aspect of it is that you can actually paint it once it's
Kara Whitten: Hardened so these earrings. I'm wearing here and these bangle bracelets. I baked the clay and then I actually painted it with acrylic craft paint to get custom colors as well. You can also get custom colors by mixing the clay.
Kara Whitten: As you know, with regular clay, but I thought it was fun to be able to paint it to and you can add a little I use like a paper pen to add some designs on it, but it doesn't get tacky or anything like that.
Kara Whitten: Which is a unique feature.
Kara Whitten: I'm sorry, I was just going to see
Kara Whitten: So again, like I said you can sew it, touch it, it's bendable you can inbox it. So if you have an embossing folder.
Kara Whitten: While it's still before you baked it, you can put it in an embossing folder and press on to a pattern on it.
Kara Whitten: You can also use little thin dies. I don't know if you are familiar with those. But you can press them in there to make an embossed pattern on or like the back of the cookie cutter on the clay before you bake it to embrace it.
Kara Whitten: And then the other fun thing is that once it's baked, you can actually cut it so you can use scissors and cut it like you would leather or fabric and it cuts. Super simple, like that.
Kara Whitten: So I believe those are all the features. Also, like I said you can mix it like the marble a defect or you can create patterns with it. Um, so
Kara Whitten: If there are any questions, feel free to ask them now. Otherwise, I'll get started on this tassel kit to kind of show you guys how to make a castle with the leather effect claiming
Stacy Burrell: You have one last question from patty. Do you have to condition the claim before starting
Kara Whitten: Um, it actually really soft out of the package.
Kara Whitten: I found that the left I work with it.
Kara Whitten: The more flexible it is once it's baked. So the more I manipulate the clay when it's
Kara Whitten: In its you know on baked form the
Kara Whitten: The stiffer, it gets once it's baked.
Kara Whitten: So this one was the marble. So it's definitely been worked a lot more. That's definitely a lot thicker. Now, I mean it. I didn't roll it out as thing but it's definitely not as pliable, as some of the clay that I just took right from the brick and rolled out
Kara Whitten: That seems to I think it's something to do with the cellulose fibers aligning a little bit better when it's right out of the package.
Kara Whitten: Hopefully that answer the question.
Kara Whitten: Um, OK.
Kara Whitten: So I'll get started.
Kara Whitten: With a Tesla. So like I said, they have a fun tussle kit at my goals that has the starter bricks of play.
Kara Whitten: And all the accessories that you need to make a double tassel and honestly could probably make two sets of tassels with all the supplies that they have in here so it comes with the instruction book.
Kara Whitten: Four colors of clay jump rings and some leather. So this is really all you need that plus and scissors and a rolling pin and you can make a few hospitals. So I already have this blue. So I'm gonna start with this.
Kara Whitten: And acrylic bowling pin and then I'm just gonna start rolling it out. Now, if you have a pasta machine or a claim only machine.
Kara Whitten: That you use just replay purposes. You can do that as well.
Kara Whitten: It doesn't make the process a lot simpler, but rolling pin works. Just, just as well. I think the pasta machine or the clay rolling machine is better for when you do the clutch so that you haven't even
Kara Whitten: Thickness all the way throughout the play, but it's not necessary, and you can still make it without it.
Kara Whitten: So once you have the clay rolled out to probably going to want I don't know what this is probably about
Kara Whitten: One 16th of an inch.
Kara Whitten: See, I call it a little bit. So there's a there's a whole thing you just fold it over and
Then roll it out some more.
Kara Whitten: So again, like I said, I like to
Kara Whitten: Bake it before I start to manipulate it. But at this point, if you wanted to. And you had it on a piece of parchment, you could easily cut it with an exacto knife.
Kara Whitten: Or utility knife or even scissors. At this point, scissors do work to cut it.
Kara Whitten: As well as you can see
Kara Whitten: What
Stacy Burrell: The surface. Do you recommend it to be rolled out on
Kara Whitten: A piece of tile. I'm just using this marble pastry board I use this for all my craft that I know it's marble, but I also like the when I take photos. I like it to the background.
Kara Whitten: So I don't ever use this for food, but this works really well. A piece of tile ceramic tile or a parchment, you know, if you just put a piece of parchment paper on your desk, the parchment. It makes it easy to peel off and and be
Kara Whitten: So those are all great services to work on and anything that you don't mind being cut. Because if you are using an exacto knife with it.
Kara Whitten: You know, it will make marks in the surface. Again, this is my craft towards this is why I'm doing it on that. But normally, I probably don't want to cut it on a piece of marble, it will scratch that marble surface.
Kara Whitten: Um, okay. So this is about the thickness that you're going to want for a tassel I think it's so thin that it's hard to actually measure, but I would say 130 seconds or something of an inch. Like, it is very then
Kara Whitten: You can kind of see that it's almost like non
Kara Whitten: You can't even see the line. Um, so once you have it like this, you would take it and put it on your baking sheet into the oven. If you have a toaster oven. You can use that
Kara Whitten: I just use my regular convection oven and I have a baking sheet that I use for when I fake clay.
Kara Whitten: I'm in. You're going to bake the clay for 30 minutes no higher than 265 degrees Fahrenheit. I don't know what the equivalent is in should notice he gets 177 130 degrees Celsius.
Kara Whitten: For 30 minutes and that 30 minutes I tested it. That's what they recommend. But of course, I wanted to test different temperatures to see what works best.
Kara Whitten: And I feel like it was still too brittle. If you under baked it so you really want to go for that 30 minute mark set a timer. Keep it in there for that 30 minutes and
Kara Whitten: It should be good for Dave. So I have to piece rolled out that can be the tassel and then you can take your leftover clay and roll this into a bead. Take some other colors, whatever you however you want your tassel to be
Kara Whitten: So this, I'm just gonna roll it into a ball to create a bead you can find needles or these fun like these are clay here see needles to help it bake it so that you can create those beads and so once you have the ball.
Kara Whitten: Rolling mission appears through the bead
Kara Whitten: And that way you can fake it, and you can form it on this a little bit of the two
Kara Whitten: Then that's also ready to bake so
Kara Whitten: Once you baked it. I've got a few pieces of you that are already baked. They are hard ready to go. And then I have my
Kara Whitten: Pieces that I've already baked to create the tassels. So at this point I'm going to cut it and trim down the leather. So as you can see I just left the edges rough because I knew that I was going to cut it afterwards. So I'm just gonna cut it into a rectangle, the
Kara Whitten: Let's say, not the length of the rectangle, but the width of the rectangle will be the length of your tassel so this direction, this will be the top and all of this will be the fringe. So if you leave this longer you have a longer test.
Kara Whitten: And again, the, the length of the tassel will this part here will determine how thick your Tesla's. So once you have your piece cut into a rectangle, you're going to French cut
Kara Whitten: Again, just a pair of scissors. You can also do this with a ruler and an exacto knife. If you want to be more precise with your cuts, but it's all rolled up. It's kind of hard to tell if some of the pieces aren't exactly the same with
Stacy Burrell: A car. We have a couple of questions. If
Stacy Burrell: You have some time is would you would you consider the clay stretchable after it's been baked.
Kara Whitten: No, it is definitely not stretchable it is flexible and you can bend it, but it's not stretchy. I give you, it's very hard, like I'm pulling all my you know as much as I can here and it's not going to stretch a great so
Awesome.
Stacy Burrell: And then we have a question, how once you open a clay pack and you don't use all of it. Do you need to preserve it somehow or to keep it from drying out. Or what would you recommend
Kara Whitten: Um, it depends on how long you're going
Kara Whitten: To be between uses I've had some of it, some pieces that I had just sitting out on my shelf in the packaging or like just on the piece of plastic open exposed to the air for a few days and it's completely fine.
Kara Whitten: But it's going to be month one unique feature of the female packaging is that if you open it carefully. It actually self seals backup so you can you can open it here in the back.
Kara Whitten: With it to heart. You can open this up cut out what you need. And then this will actually sell steel back together to keep it.
Kara Whitten: Fresh for you. But if you've already worked some of the clay and you have like just a chunk here that you need. I like to use the black bags or saran wrap to wrap it up to keep it.
Kara Whitten: airtight i don't think that it will fully dry up because it's a polymer clay is not an air dried clay, but it does get more brittle more. The longer it's exposed to air just from that water evaporating.
Kara Whitten: Okay. So as you see here I've got it all French cut, which is actually a fun trip piece that you could, you know, use to add to
Kara Whitten: Your clutch or something to if you wanted to have like a fun have French, French trim. But once you have your peace cut
Kara Whitten: One of the fun or what I really liked about the place that you can use superglue to glue it together. And that's really how I made this
Kara Whitten: Like this clutch and the yellow one. I didn't. So any of it. As you can see, there's no stitching on it. I use the super glue to attach it to the plane to itself to create the clutch so
Kara Whitten: With a superglue instance, a new bottle.
Kara Whitten: You just going to run a bead along the top.
Kara Whitten: Line of the
Kara Whitten: Being a leather effect clay where you did not cut and then you're just going to roll it up.
Kara Whitten: And just be careful not to get it on your fingers. The superglue because it will blow your fingers together or your fingers to the clay. If that happens, as the token nail polish remover works wonders. I know this from experience.
Kara Whitten: But as you can see, now I have a fun
Kara Whitten: tassel and so you can, once you get to this point, you can add the leather.
Kara Whitten: Rope that kicking comes in the kit. If you do buy the kit you just buy the full bricks of it, then you can use any sort of
Kara Whitten: 14 or or whiners who create a loop on the tassel and then you will want to, well, I realize now that I did not make me feel the holes big enough.
Kara Whitten: So it's a little bit of me.
Kara Whitten: I made it. That's what I actually made one with a small skewer well at the Blue Beam.
Kara Whitten: So you can add the Blue Beetle to it.
Kara Whitten: Create a little really this time is the time for you to use your imagination. Now there are instructions and show you that are instructions in the tassel kit to show you how to
Kara Whitten: Make the tassel it's shown on the cover, but you can use your imagination and create any sort of tassel be combo that you like.
So,
Stacy Burrell: You have a another good question here. Can you use this type of clay and no silicone mold.
Kara Whitten: Um, you can
Kara Whitten: I think the, the biggest issue with it would be to make sure that there's no bubbles. I've tried using the clay.
Kara Whitten: Not specific one. But the polymer clay in a silicone mold before and it does create air pockets and you're invested into the mold. So as long as you can eliminate that may be doing the spin later and really making sure that the air pockets are out.
Kara Whitten: It shouldn't be a problem.
Kara Whitten: So yes, you could do that. Good. So I just threaded the bead here.
Kara Whitten: With the
Kara Whitten: Sorry, the string and then I just put it through the top of the tassel and I'm going to actually superglue this on because I made the whole
Kara Whitten: The whole of my tassels fairly big, so I can't really tie a knot in the bottom of this and have it hold. They're going to add a little bit of superglue inherent in typically this string on to the test.
Kara Whitten: That against Superglue is kind of your best friend with this clay because it really helps you create a bunch of unique things, especially since I like to be leading this clay after it's been faked as opposed to before with traditional polymer clay where you would
Kara Whitten: Delete it before. It's been the boards hardened this one after it's nice to have that superglue be able to like join the play pieces together.
Kara Whitten: To ensure in there, let that sit for a second. Do we have any more questions.
Stacy Burrell: Are you able to cut
Stacy Burrell: The clay and glue it before it's baked.
Kara Whitten: You can cut the clay before it's baked. But I don't think that the glue. I don't think you would want to
Kara Whitten: Heat the super glue. So I would recommend doing the gluing after it's been baked in. But as you can see here, like I can, I can cut the clay. It does shrink a little this leather effect. CLAY DOES shrink a lot a little when it's baked. So that is one and another reason why it's nice to
Kara Whitten: Roll it out a little bit bigger than you might need it for the finished product project because it will shrink a little bit in the oven.
Kara Whitten: Another was a day. Oh, and you can use an exacto knife or a utility knife to cut it as well. My lips.
Kara Whitten: Before it's been hard into the oven, as well as after it's been hard in the oven that also works with just to push a little bit harder.
Kara Whitten: One thing that is fun with it. If any of you have a vinyl cutting machine that as a knife blade.
Kara Whitten: You can actually cut once it's been baked in hardened, you can actually cut it with the knife blade in a vinyl cutting machine.
Kara Whitten: So for example, this one that I did all of these little pieces in the earrings that I'm wearing now.
Kara Whitten: I used my vitamin A machine in the knife blade and it just took a few passes, but I was able to cut out all of these little pieces and then I just Superglued them on this clutch that I am baked in some ready
Kara Whitten: So that's a fun. Another fun way of getting like really intricate details. I'm in your clay which is kind of hard to get
Kara Whitten: With the traditional polymer clay, because you can't do that.
Kara Whitten: You know, just when it's still like flexible and stuff. It's hard to get those like accurate clean cuts.
Kara Whitten: Alright.
Kara Whitten: So,
Kara Whitten: We have our tassel
Kara Whitten: Um, I'll put that aside for now and we'll talk about this clutch unless there are any other questions about the test.
Kara Whitten: This time for the plane, Jim.
Stacy Burrell: You have one question about how you attach the clip of the tassel to a clutch.
Kara Whitten: Okay, so for for this one I took my tassels when I touched him to a teaching that had like a lobster lobster.
Kara Whitten: Um, and so I just poked a hole with a hole punch. As you can see here there's a little hole there. I just hole punched the clay and then I just put the lobster class through that whole
Kara Whitten: Another option. Well, I guess into that same thing here, you if you if you do a zipper one, you can use a jump ring with superglue jumping onto the tassel and use that to attach to the zipper or again. I did that.
Kara Whitten: Ever do tassels as well. The lobster class on the I just cooked up punched a hole with the hole punch in the face, like
Kara Whitten: Alright, so for the clutches.
Kara Whitten: As you can see here, let's say, with this one. I did a color blocking effect. So we have like the cobalt blue with the more teal color.
Kara Whitten: And on the back there's that overlapping those color blocked. Look, I did this, primarily because I needed two bricks of clay.
Kara Whitten: To make the size of clutch that I wanted. But you could do the same color. It doesn't have to be a color blocking. Look, it can be you know whatever color claim that you want and then
Kara Whitten: For the closure for this one I actually used a piece of clay. This one, this world really sick.
Kara Whitten: That we just Superglued around the top one, the top and the bottom lifts up kind of like a little tab and I Superglued on a piece of elastic to the underside that can adjust wraps right around at clay piece. Um, another option for closure.
Kara Whitten: Is this one where I
Kara Whitten: There's a strip of the leather play. There's Superglued again across the top. The left the bottom open and the same thing here, but the opposite side so that this actually overlaps in locks into place and you can see it's like
Kara Whitten: But it holds it closed. So that's another way of doing the closure, which is kind of fun. It was like a unique kind of trying to figure out how to do a closure on a clutch with this clay. But again, you could always if you are seems so you can sell on a zipper as well.
Kara Whitten: So okay, so we'll get started. I'll take this clay that I already rolled out and I found again like I said earlier, I found that the flavor only machine really works well for getting an even thickness of the clay when working with the clutch. But if you don't have a machine.
Kara Whitten: You could add got you know guides to your acrylic roller like just a rubber band around the side so that you can't push down too much and you get an even roll.
Kara Whitten: That's a baker's trick for you if you do have a machine, you want to start at one and just roll it through to just get that initial roll.
Kara Whitten: Right, and then you just kind of keep working your way down. I found the optimal for the clutch is like a level four, five. So if you go from one to two, when you go to three or four
Kara Whitten: By time you get to four or five, it's, it's pretty it's pretty thin and it's
Kara Whitten: Perfect for the clutch. Again, if you are using the roller
Kara Whitten: You, you want to kind of be like that tassel where it's just
Kara Whitten: Not only paper thin
Kara Whitten: But almost like a cards up just like a hair thicker than what a card stuff would be so it's fairly thin
Kara Whitten: It's a little difficult sitting down attend to stand up when I when I roll to get that little bit of pressure.
Kara Whitten: But one full brick if rolled correctly will get you a piece about this. So if it's a proper thick that sadness for a clutch, this was just one brick of play. And this is, I would say roughly six inches by seven inches. So that will help you guide you to
Kara Whitten: As you can see, here's a pink one that I did, it's not it's not perfect, so don't worry about getting that perfect like straight rectangle that's what's nice about this is that you can cut it afterwards to the correct size that you need.
Kara Whitten: So once you have your clay. Oh, I should tell you one other unique feature is if you're rolling the clay, it will get fairly smooth on the surface and look just like a regular polymer clay does
Kara Whitten: But in order to get that other effects that mother texture to show up, you just kind of want to pull pull the clay. Sure, stretch it a little bit.
Kara Whitten: And as you stretch it, it will show those fibers and give you that really like modeled leather texture to look so I sometimes I'm kind of gently do that almost like I'm stretching like pizza dough, but just very gently.
Kara Whitten: And once I have that rolled and stretched gently to reveal those fibers. I will put this on my baking sheet and bake it again for 30 minutes at 265 Fahrenheit or 130 degrees Celsius.
Kara Whitten: And then once it's baked. I'll let it cool. And once you have that
Kara Whitten: You will have the pieces for your pledge so
Kara Whitten: For the clutch. You will need to bricks of clay one. It can be the same color can be different colors with the color blocking, but this will form the body of the clutch.
Kara Whitten: And then you'll need an extra little piece that will be for the closures, or any details that you want to add to it or tassels and whatnot. So I would say three bricks and clay will definitely get you a finished clutch with accessories add on.
Kara Whitten: Okay, so now that you have your baked pieces scissors.
Kara Whitten: I'm going to just even even this out. Now, if you have a rotary cutter or a ruler and Matt like you can do this little bit more accurately.
Kara Whitten: For this instance. I'm just going to eyeball it, but you can use a ruler and the exacto knife to get this, you know, really nicely cut into a rectangle
Kara Whitten: And again, it doesn't really matter the size that you end up as long as it's good for you. You know, I don't know that these are exactly the same. These clutches. Let me actually they're pretty they're pretty much the same.
Kara Whitten: Um, but if you're wanting to use this clutch to hold a pair of sunglasses, then just make sure that your son, you know that it's going to be at least
Kara Whitten: An inch, inch and a half wider than your sunglasses to account for the depth of the sunglasses. But other than that, there's no hard and fast rule on the sizing here. Just do you want to make sure that the two colors or the two pieces that you make are roughly the same size.
Kara Whitten: So, now look at the first one I'm going to go ahead and use them as a guide for the second piece. They can already see that the pink one is
Kara Whitten: A little bit smaller. So I'm going to trim down this top line to get it match up better.
Kara Whitten: But you see it's very easy to cut and trim.
Kara Whitten: I would say, it must be easier than the fabric of the scissors definitely would not work on fabric.
Kara Whitten: Little bit smaller so true. This
Stacy Burrell: Have a couple questions if you have some time. Um,
Stacy Burrell: What are the odds of the clay sticking to the rollers.
Kara Whitten: In the machine. They don't unless you go really thin like I don't think that this clay can go past a six or seven without it really tearing apart.
Kara Whitten: When you are rolling it through.
Stacy Burrell: The machine.
Kara Whitten: And it's like a big piece, it will it will get stuck to the edge here this outer edge as you're trying to pull it through. So you kind of definitely have to
Kara Whitten: Do it slowly like hold the clay up unless you have like the form that will hold it, but hold the clip of one hand guy this one out a little bit. A little bit more guided out
Kara Whitten: If you're working with, like, a full sheet like this. If it's just a small little piece that you're rolling it doesn't get stuck in there and I don't really have an issue with it ever getting stuck on the acrylic roller
Kara Whitten: Actually, it's, it's pretty easy to work with. I feel like it's almost easier than the standard polymer clay. It is now it is soft, but I think that's because
Kara Whitten: I like it, even though it is soft. I like it because I can bake it, and then manipulate it a lot easier.
Kara Whitten: That's so now I'm going to trim this one up.
Kara Whitten: Now, people like for a certain size definitely make sure you know that you roll it out beforehand to the size that need a little bit bigger because it does shrink up for now we have two pieces that are roughly the same size.
Kara Whitten: And for this, I'm going to now find these together with a little bit of superglue
Kara Whitten: Was there another question.
Stacy Burrell: Yes. What do you recommend for cleaning the clutch once it's put together.
Kara Whitten: Um, I would say just a damp cloth would probably work because it isn't, it isn't actual leather. It's just, you know, polymer. It's just plastic, so a damp paper towels probably only need to clean it.
Kara Whitten: And it's going to repel water and everything like that, because it is plastic. It's not like a traditional leather.
Kara Whitten: Rights and to let this sit for just a second to get that bond in there, but now it just basically created a full sheet of a longer sheet of the leather effect clay.
Kara Whitten: So for the bottom of the clay. I'm just gonna fold it up.
Kara Whitten: Roughly, this is all for me it's all just kind of visual. It's about two thirds of the way up so that you get a nice color blocking effect here with the fold over. So I would say that this is maybe slightly over two thirds, maybe three fourths of the way up.
Kara Whitten: To you to gently push on the edges here.
Kara Whitten: And you're so superglue those sides.
Kara Whitten: So again, this is what's really nice. It's like this takes no sewing skills or
Kara Whitten: anything whatsoever. Funny enough, I actually got started crafting and doing handbags, so I was like this like a full circle moment for me 15 years ago I made my first bag and took it to a local store to sell and now I'm showing you guys how to make
Kara Whitten: Um, so again, you're just going to kind of pinch it here. You can use um
Kara Whitten: Binder clips or some sort of clamp, if you want to, to hold it in place while the glue dries, but I feel like it binds pretty quickly.
Kara Whitten: And you do just want to make sure that when you are folding it here that don't get on your fingers. It did glued to my fingers together when I was making one one of these. I don't remember which one it was.
Kara Whitten: Just kind of hold that the form that create that seal. There you go. And then so now you have you, but as you can see this
Kara Whitten: This plot wants to stay open. So that's why you really do need that closure. So for this one I'm going to you.
Kara Whitten: The turquoise and I'm sure the cut some streets and I'm going to do the same social that I did for the gray and yellow sun clutch.
Kara Whitten: So you want just about an inch thick strips of leather effect clay that you have rolled and baked, the width doesn't isn't necessarily or the length here doesn't really matter as long as they're the same. So I would say this is about one and a half inches by one inch.
Kara Whitten: But feel free to adjust as needed.
Kara Whitten: So I'm going to put one up here and I'm going to align it limited blue this one on first.
Kara Whitten: The blue. The one on to the flat first so that I can make sure that the one on the bottom is in the correct position. And again, I'm just going to put a little bit of the superglue
Kara Whitten: On one side only.
Kara Whitten: So just along the top here. So that does bottom part can stay as the flop.
Kara Whitten: Or can say flappy so that it can connect to that other piece of play.
Kara Whitten: Okay, so now I'm going to fold it over. I'm going to, I'm going to insert this one here. So that kind of makes me and tells me where I need to do it.
Kara Whitten: And then
Kara Whitten: On Click it.
Kara Whitten: Now I have roughly the spot that I need to double check that. OK, so now I know roughly. This is where I need to attach this other one and I'm going to gently lift it up and do it right here that I don't move that out of the position.
Kara Whitten: That is your easy closure.
Kara Whitten: Again, if you can, so I do feel that the touches that you can do a two pieces like as you can see here, this is two pieces of clay that I stitched together. You can make these a little bit thicker because you don't need to do this fold over
Kara Whitten: And this holds really well. Just make sure that when you are sitting with the machine, you do a really long basting stitch.
Kara Whitten: Instead of a closer together, such that you would normally do for fabric because if the stitching is too close together and actually almost cut it can cut the clay. So, that is also another option for creating this
Kara Whitten: OK, so now those are finished, we will just slide them. And then, there we go. There's the simple clutch and then if you are wanting to add your tassel
Kara Whitten: Getting a little all or a hole punch and you can punch a hole right here in the clay with that and use that to attach your test assumptions steals tassel from over here, since it's got a class on it.
And I'm sure we'll get through them.
Kara Whitten: And add that tassel
Kara Whitten: So there's a little clutch and then you can see with like this one. I just curved the top so i went ahead after I made it and I cut this
Kara Whitten: In a curved pattern, you could do, you know, a triangle. You can do zigzag just kind of make it whatever you want and however you like.
Kara Whitten: And then again for detailing so for this Sunburst I wanted it to look like a son and the rays of sun. I took the I took another piece of yellow
Kara Whitten: Play that I had rolled out and cut that into strips and use the superglue to attach that to this gray portion. Once I had made the bag to create those Sunburst pieces and then you can also do it.
Kara Whitten: In create like a wrist strap to that you can use to hold it. This would also be great for like a lanyard or for a key fob
Kara Whitten: You can do something like that as well with the clay and then any sort of look teachings or detailing
Kara Whitten: So I think that sums that up unless there's any questions about the clutch. Anybody have
Stacy Burrell: No, we got some
Stacy Burrell: That's my compliments and some people have said that it looks wonderful. Got some people that are really interested in the marbling effect. The Marvel clutch.
Stacy Burrell: Like the flower clutch.
Kara Whitten: Oh, yes. Yeah.
Kara Whitten: So yeah, on this one. I just wanted to show two different techniques. It's not necessary. I mean, I guess it could be marble on one side in a
Kara Whitten: Flower, on the other, but I kind of wanted to just show different techniques on how you can, how you can use that clay.
Kara Whitten: So for the marbling, you would just if you've marbled polymer clay before it's really the same process. The only difference is, and I don't know if you can see it here. It's not a smooth of a marble. You can see that texture show through.
Kara Whitten: In the place. So those little cellulose fibers, when you start to marble it do it almost looks like a kind of a grain year appearance than a traditional marvel of polymer clay. So that is one thing to keep in mind.
Kara Whitten: But you'll just want to roll your play into log shapes.
Kara Whitten: To start this. So I'll show you guys how to do the Marvel again like I said at the beginning, you can also pay just to let me take up on my earrings here, but this was this lifted wrong. The other side succeed. This was the gray.
Kara Whitten: Female other effects clay and I actually painted it with acrylic craft Pete and then I used an oil based paint pen.
Kara Whitten: To paint on the detail designs and I cut this with my vinyl cutting machines. So I rolled out the grade to lunch sheet I put it in the vinyl cutting machine with a knife blade and I cut out
Kara Whitten: The monster lease. And then I painted it and added the detailing on it, which I think is a fun and it is. You can see it's it feels like leather. It looks like leather up close and it's definitely bendable and flexible and it's not breaking. So that's a fun
Kara Whitten: Different way of using it kind of like to find unique methods for using some of the clay and
Kara Whitten: that haven't been thought of before. So hopefully I've shared some new ideas for you guys to experiment with
Kara Whitten: So for the marbling, you are going to want to pick some colors that actually go well together. Because otherwise, if you if you choose to many or you marvel at too much. It'll just turn into a brown much so you really want to get some colors are complimentary that blend well
Kara Whitten: So for this one I'm going to go with the pink and blue and a little bit of black in there. So again, you can see I created the three logs. I'm going to switch those together, roll it or not to
Kara Whitten: Go too hard on the table because we tripod interesting
Kara Whitten: But once you enroll together, then you start twisting it
Kara Whitten: The more you twist it that the bigger idea, the more marbled your claim look so once you get it fairly well twisted, you're going to fold it in half and twisted. Again, you want to do this three or four times depending on how marbles. You want the clay to look
Kara Whitten: You get it long enough for me. It's harder to twisted starting to come apart and just roll it into law again.
Kara Whitten: Fold it in half twist it more
Kara Whitten: So this little leather effect does pull apart a little bit. As you can see here, I don't see them. But it starts to kind of pull apart and seeing that like leather those fibers start to show. So you just have to be a little bit careful when you are marbling it
Okay, really twisted
Kara Whitten: Little more. And you can kind of gauge like okay, you can still bit see big swirls of color in here so I haven't over mixed it
Kara Whitten: But you can kind of gauge, like how it's going to love. And if you want to keep twisting it and keep for me in it to really marble that clay together.
Kara Whitten: Okay, so it gets getting to a point where I like it. So now I'm just going to stand up so they can roll this out and
Kara Whitten: Then start to roll this out to see what it looks like if you start to roll it out, like, oh, that's not as marbled as I want. Feel free to just bunch of backup and twisted a little bit more. So I'll just do that.
Kara Whitten: Um,
Kara Whitten: Let's see here. It's starting to get pretty good. I think that's good. So I'm gonna actually just use the play machine going to set it on the largest setting, which is one.
Kara Whitten: And then I'll just
Kara Whitten: Pull that through that'll help me marble it as well.
Kara Whitten: But you can use the rolling pin for this.
Kara Whitten: So let's see.
Kara Whitten: Let's see, it's hard to create this nice
Kara Whitten: marbled greenie
Kara Whitten: Look, so if you're used to working with regular polymer clay. It is a little bit different.
Kara Whitten: The marbling does look a little bit different. The other issue that you will see, I guess that's kind of the same with regular is that it does separate a little bit here. So if you're wanting like one long piece to kind of work me to work with a lot of play at once, but
Kara Whitten: That you don't really work it together and end up forming a new color of clay versus that marble look because once you've marble that she can't really you can't continue to work at too much or else it just will end up blending together.
Kara Whitten: But that's how you would marble it for this clutch I used for bricks of clay.
Kara Whitten: I use the pink the teal the mustard yellow and
Kara Whitten: The one white, I believe it was white.
Kara Whitten: So I've used that and mix it together quite a bit. As you can see the colors are very, very mixed in there.
Kara Whitten: And I rolled it out and I was able to make these two pieces which, as you can tell it's roughly the same size of these ones that I use that I only use two bricks for but it's but I used for. So this class definitely twice for thickness
Kara Whitten: But that can that works well with the stitched
Kara Whitten: Like so. Anyway, so then once you have the marble, just go ahead and bake it at this point if it before it's baked. If you want to cut it with cookie cutters or anything like that, you definitely can.
Kara Whitten: You don't have to do that because the cookie cutters won't really work once it's been baked because it is too hard for them to penetrate
Kara Whitten: So that is something that you would need to do beforehand before baking it. But again, if you have like a cutting in that you want to use definitely bake it first before cutting it or if you want to cut it with scissors into more intricate shapes do that. After baking.
Kara Whitten: All right, well, I think I'm done. So I can answer any more questions that anybody has or if they want to see something see me do something with it. Feel free to let me know.
Stacy Burrell: Yeah, we have a question about can you add glitter to the clip.
Kara Whitten: I would say try it. I haven't, I haven't attempted that yet.
Kara Whitten: But I don't see how that would
Kara Whitten: hurt anything. I'm definitely I'm pretty sure that will work because it's it is, you know, the polymer clay that you're used to it just has that add in those fibers. So I think adding glitter to it wouldn't hurt it or prevented you from using wait
Stacy Burrell: For perfect. I don't see any questions. We have a lot of compliments people saying that looks really cool marble looks like a galaxy. Thank you. Um,
Kara Whitten: I did see somebody asked about making impressions, you
Stacy Burrell: Can see
Kara Whitten: One second. I can show you how I did that.
Kara Whitten: So these are little for like a rolling like a rolling cutting machine. These are little sunlit metal dies and they have
Kara Whitten: Raised parts that kind of inbox it so you can do like this and just kind of press it into the clay before baking it and pull it up and I don't know. You can actually see them.
Kara Whitten: Try the solid color patterns you know too much so you can press that in there and it creates see if see that a little bit.
Kara Whitten: It creates that pattern in there. So if you do a lot like a roll out your play really thin
Kara Whitten: You can put all of these little guys all over at present almost cookie cutter. So you're not cutting through you're just embossing it and then you can bake it, and it'll create that embossed leather look
Kara Whitten: I think that's it.
Stacy Burrell: All right, perfect. People love the class. Thank you everyone for coming to the class today and we had a really great time. Make sure to follow up Kira
Stacy Burrell: Kira chic life, do they get that right this time.
I'm
Kara Whitten: A Pyro sheet life.com and then on social it's just kind of sheet which AI elo CH IC so on all social channels. You can find me and kind of sheep.
Stacy Burrell: Perfect. And if anybody makes this clutch, feel free to tag car tag Michaels We have hashtag. Make it with Michaels. If you want to show us what you make.
Stacy Burrell: This video is being recorded so if you'd like to watch it again, it will be available on michaels.com slash classes starting on Saturday.
Stacy Burrell: And we're going to have more classes with female clay. If you're interested in taking those, make sure to check those out. You can go to michaels.com slash his classes for that as well. Thank you. Thank you, Kara.
Kara Whitten: And yeah, I
Stacy Burrell: hope everyone has a wonderful night.
Kara Whitten: I wasn't there plenty other class because I will be doing a jewelry making classes, specifically, showing how to use the female other effects to make jewelry like these are the angles as well. In August, so you guys should look out for that.
Stacy Burrell: Yes, everyone look out for that. That sounds like a really great class. Okay.
Stacy Burrell: Thank you, everyone. Bye.
