Project by Yuriy Luzov from Colorado Springs, Colo.
Yuriy is a 22-year-old college student who has been interested in the arts since he was much younger. When he’s not crafting, he takes advantage of the beautiful surroundings of Colorado Springs as an avid higher and spelunker. Among other arts like silver casting, ceramics, and stone carving, Yuriy is primarily fascinated by the amazing things he can do with polymer clay. One of those "things" is his fire ant pendant.
Materials:
polymer clay
18-gauge sterling silver wire
Steps:
1. Make several canes from polymer clay. Make a millefiori cane, striped cane, and a bull's eye cane.
2. Reduce bull's eye cane and cut into sections. Place into "grid" design (half crescent) and form into a crescent shape (cross-section view).
3. Make a second crescent. Take both crescents from different patterns (combining crescents of stripes, bull's eye and other patterns) and spiral them together.
4. The spiral is a cylinder shape that’s made of the two crescents. Shape into a triangle; pinch three sides, turn and repeat to reduce triangle. Slices will be 1/8 inch tall and about 1mm thick.
5. Form and slice the canes. The octagon bead comprised of eight different triangles. Make a football-shaped bead using four triangles, one with a curved edge.
6. Make the arms using four triangles.
7. Use separate canes for eyes and embellishments. Use scrap clay when possible as embellishment too.
8. Put slices together into shapes. Assemble the three-dimensional pieces into an octagon body.
9. Cut 16 triangles and make into an eight-pointed star. Seal up the seams between the points.
10. Put shapes together into beetle. Attach legs.
11. Make two different sections of the body and the head.
12. Slice the ball of cane in half and place on top of cane.
13. Add eyelashes, nose and lips. Add claws from pointy teardrop shapes.
14. Use a clear glass Christmas bulb as a mold when baking. Bake beetle according to package instructions. Quench it in a cold bath to release insect from mold and dry off.
15. Wire wrap the beetle into a pin/pendant with silver wire to make into a pendant.
Website: http://nexusjinn.deviantart.com/gallery
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