Clay Beads with Sculpey

 Once upon a time in a land far away, I dreamt of being a special effects make-up artist. I think Star Trek: The Next Generation was my inspiration, actually. I wanted to make aliens.

As part of my short-lived and extremely expensive make-up career, I acquired a number of sculpting tools and a taste for sculpting. Not a talent for it, not even an appreciation for it, or much knowledge of it. But just enough of a taste to enjoy it.

So when I got all starry-eyed about jewelry making this past winter, I thought I should make my own beads to make it all more truly handmade, for when I opened my amazing Etsy shop. Then I got really creative, as I sometimes do when I am bored at work or need a bit of a vacation from reality. I have a whole list (somewhere) of all the things I am going to figure out how to sculpt from Sculpey, turn into jewelry, and sell for mucho dollars. I'll give a few of them a try down the line to give us all a laugh.

Meanwhile, in a crafty frenzy at Michael's earlier this year I bought a few small blocks of Sculpey in several colors, and back in January I snatched up a friend's toaster oven before she donated it to Goodwill. My very first Sculpey bead-making experiment was a failure, as I discovered I have no natural talent for shaping pretty beads, and I burned the hell out of the first few I slapped together. I think it's because I was watching Game of Thrones, and stopped paying attention to the toaster.

The other day, I decided to try again. Months ago I had found a tutorial somewhere on making pretty beads with a funny name, and based on an extremely hazy memory of this tutorial (which, now that I look back on it, probably didn't even make sense when I originally read it), I smashed together some clay and was predictably disappointed with the results. So I just rubbed some stuff together and came up with these:

... and was actually rather pleased with how they looked. "Remember, Self," I realized. "Start with simple stuff and go from there." So I made some more:

Which I baked on these makeshift bead holders (that is a 3" jewelry wire baked into some Sculpey):

Glazed:

Then sat back and admired.

Certainly they won't be winning any awards, but I kind of like them. And it's about the baby steps these days, I need to keep telling myself. The real lesson, of course, is that I need more equipment, tools, and clay. Also maybe next time read the tutorial again.