Millifiori (complex cane pendant)

Using complex canes in a pendantMaking a complex cane is hard work. This tutorial forms part of the complex cane or millifiori technique tutorials. This tutorial shows how you can incorporate slices from your complex cane to make a pretty pendant.

Jan 26, 2010
Striped cane
Feb 19, 2010

White, green, red, yellow striped caneAs you may have noticed, I like making striped jewellery. But in today's tutorial I wanted to show how easy it is to make a striped log. 

Shiny polymer clay beads
Dec 21, 2009

After baking a piece I get flustered on how much I should do to finish it. I ask myself, 'Will it make a significant difference to wet-sand each piece from 400 grit to 1200 grit, polish and varnish it compared to just varnishing it?' I've spent many hours agonising over this and figured the best way to resolve my indecision is by approaching it in a (reasonably) scientific manner. Experiment.


Striped cane
How-to

White, green, red, yellow striped caneAs you may have noticed, I like making striped jewellery. But in today's tutorial I wanted to show how easy it is to make a striped log. 

Feb 19, 2010
Making a multiple flower cane
How-to

Multiple flower cane beadAny series of articles about complex caning would be incomplete if it did not show you how to incorporate multiple patterned logs into your cane. This article shows you how to make a cane with 5 flowers in the pattern. In this example I show how to use the slices on a bead, but you could obviously use it for whatever type of jewellery you’d like. 

Jan 26, 2010
Covered cane
How-to

Covering a cane with millifiori slicesThis tutorial forms part of the complex cane or millifiori technique series. One of the common ways to use a complex cane is by adding slices from the millifiori cane onto another cane. This tutorial shows how to do it. 

Jan 26, 2010
Millifiori (complex cane pendant)
Tutorial

Using complex canes in a pendantMaking a complex cane is hard work. This tutorial forms part of the complex cane or millifiori technique tutorials. This tutorial shows how you can incorporate slices from your complex cane to make a pretty pendant.

Jan 26, 2010
Complex caning or millifiori - red flower
How-to

Complex caning - millifiori techniqueI’ve always been enthralled with millifiori beads and when I looked at them I considered it some sort of crafty magic. When I started making polymer clay jewellery I immediately jumped onto the complex cane tutorials and tried to do something similar. To say the least, my first attempt was a dismal failure. Actually, come to think of it, so was the second, third... hmmm... let’s just say a...

Jan 26, 2010
Combed bead
How-to

Combed oval beadWhen I think about the scoring technique I always think of making a sheet and then wrapping it around beads or making something flat like a pendant. As I like using stringing-beads as an experimentation zone, I thought it would be a good time to think using this technique in a different context. So here’s one, using combing on an oval bead.

Jan 23, 2010
Combing
How-to

Polymer clay technique: combingCombing is a simple but pretty technique to create interesting patterns for your pieces. This tutorial shows the basic steps for combing polymer clay. The result can be used for pendants and other jewellery pieces or you can wrap the clay sheet around beads.

Dec 30, 2009
Green barrel bead using hard-in-soft inlay (with gaps)
How-to

Hard-in-soft inlay barrel bead In this tutorial I played around with hard-in-soft inlay.  I wanted to make an interesting bead with gaps around the bull’s eye cane. I've been trying to be more disciplined with my work in the past few months, so I look for any excuse to experiment when I write tutorials. This is not a technique that you’d use for everything. If you want a smooth bead you should use soft-in-soft...

Dec 30, 2009
Rounded rectangle beads - soft-in-soft inlay
How-to

Rounded rectangle striped bead using soft-in-soft inlayFor one of my Christmas presents I got a book on the history of beads. I really liked one of the beads on the cover. Unfortunately it did not say where it was from, only that it is an example of...

Dec 29, 2009
Jelly roll cane
Techniques

Jelly roll caneJelly rolls are one of the basic caning techniques. It is often used in more complex canes but can also be sliced to form round beads.  A cane is a rod or log of clay. The advantage of creating canes like this one is that you can create a pattern throughout the whole piece of clay.

Dec 27, 2009