I decided to have a play today. I have had some Fimo Liquid Gel kicking around in my supplies drawer for ages and have never used it. It was one of those things that I saw in my favourite Polymer Clay Shop, Clayaround, and somehow it just ended up in my basket! I am sure the same thing has happened to you!
Whilst flicking through FB yesterday I stumbled upon a free tutorial, by a Russian Lady, and it looked like a lot of fun. A little bit of playing with Google Translate and I thought I had the gist of it.
Unfortunately there was one vital ingredient that I do not possess. Resin. I have always wanted to have a go with Resin, but the mixing, and the waiting for it to set, I know, would be my downfall - I never was the most patient of people, so I have never bought any.
Not to be deterred, I decided to try it anyway and would just give the beads a couple of coats of glaze instead.....!
Unfortunately this really was not a good idea. It turns out that the Gel is very flexible when baked, which I am sure is brilliant for some applications, but for beads that will obviously have a fair bit of wear and tear - it was just not strong enough.
These are the first leaves I made. I sort of followed the tutorial, but really just used it as a guideline. The colours are gorgeous, but I wanted a clearer finish, so I sanded with about 6 different grits of sandpaper, but it seemed to make things worse. The instructions on the Gel bottle said that you can wet sand, however I used my Micro Mesh - so maybe this is where I went wrong!
Autumnal Leaves |
Not a good finish! |
Lovely colours - but very streaky finish! |
My Thumbnail Indent! |
So lots of lessons learnt and lots of experimentation, which is always a good thing. It has been ages since I just played for the sake of playing and I think it is something I should do more often.
I now have something else new in the oven, we shall see if this experiment turns out any better!!