Making Hollow Beads

     Hollow polymer clay beads have been around for a while and I'm sure there are many tutorials available online. I have seen several great ideas how to build an armature for polymer clay beads and sculptures, especially if the aim is to achieve bigger size. It can be made with help of card stock, wire, styrofoam, polymer clay itself and many other tricks. 

     My hollow cylinder beads developed from the ruffled earring bead design I started to make back in January and the only armature I use are few small foil balls inside the cylinder while shaping the first end and then removed. Once out of curiosity I ruffled and closed both ends instead of just one, very soon I wanted to increase the size and that's how I started to make my cylinder beads. The finished bead is  4cm tall and 2.5 cm diameter and I really love this generous size. 

     Scroll down to have a look at step by step process and see the finished necklace below. Pictured beads are made from translucent polymer clay in four colours and I have used silk Chinese knotting cord to string beads. 

Hollow Cylinder Bead Necklace / Valg Studio

Monthly Possibilities

     February - it means I had 3 days less than in January to enter 12 Polymer Clay Projects monthly challenge. Of course it wasn't my intention to leave it so late but here is what happened.

Glazed and ready for assembling.

      I had a couple ideas what I wanted to try including Tribal Necklace, Flower Beads and Goose Bumps Project. None of them fulfilled my expectations, but I believe there are great opportunities and I will definitely go back to them and explore more.

Beaded part measures 3.5 x 4.5 cm.

      There was 6 days left in February when I decided to use 3 colours of translucent Fimo and striped cane from one of my previous projects. I also wanted to include Mokume Gane technique elements and if possible to play with shapes. 15 small pieces, sanding, glazing and here you have my final piece - "Gathering" Necklace.

Eye-catching "Gathering".

 
      Challenges. First, I knew that translucent clay will change its colour during baking and from beginning I was a little bit unsure about the whole concept but when I started to assemble everything came together nicely. Working on this project was quite spontaneous, that occurs when one idea sparks another, I just had to let my fingers to do what they like.