The taming chaos bracelet tutorial shows how to make and assemble polymer clay beads for a bracelet. It uses a soft in hard polymer clay technique.

Materials needed

• Clay
• White 
• Translucent 
• Brown
• Yellow
• Dark acrylic paint (red, umbre, black)
• Dark brown/ black clay

Equipment

• Rolling pin
• Glass

Mixing the clay

I wanted some texture in the clay, so I mixed 1 block of 56g and one translucent block. Then added a pinch of yellow and a pinch of brown the white to give it a bone colour. Please see this tutorial for the method I used for getting this clay effect.

Roll out the clay. I put mine through the pasta machine on the thickest setting, Then stacked three layers to get the width. You could also roll it out with cards. 

Cut blocks of clay. I used 14 pieces each measuring 1.2cm by 3cm. 

Use your fingers to smooth the clay with rounded edges. Press your blade against the edges to make sure they are straight. 

I used my tissue blade to put a borde around and cut a groove in each bead. Embellish the bead to your liking. I used a thingie to make the holes. You have to make sure that the grooves are deep enough. It's not that important to make all the patterns exactly the same, for this look I wanted some variation and the technique leans toward a more experimental look. 

I prefer making holes in clay before baking. You need to make two holes through each bead. Be careful to ensure that they all line up and are spaced equally. 

Bake the clay on a piece of glass. Sand and polish the bead. Don't bother too much with the front, as we are going to cover that with raw clay in the next step, but make sure that it is nice and flat. But do take care with the back and sides. We want to be sure that the rounded edges are done nicely. We want to fill in the shape with another colour of clay. Roll out a layer of dark clay as thin as you can. Cut it to the right size and place it on top of the pattern. Make sure you don't trap any bubbles in the clay. Press down on the bead to make sure the dark clay is completely stuck to the light baked bead. You can carry on rubbing it until you are happy. We are going to sand away this layer after baking to reveal the pattern.

Bake the beads according to clay manufacturer instructions. Let it cool down. 

You'll have to be very careful when you sand this part. We want to reveal the pattern by removing the layer of clay through sanding. But if the original pattern was not at the same depth you will loose detail if you sand too much. It's not too much of a problem because we want the shapes to reveal themselves and not be perfect. When you san also try not to push too hard. 

Start sanding from low to high grit. I used 360, 600 and 800. Polish the beads with your polishing tool. If you don't have a dremel or polisher I suggest using a nail buff. 

The beads are basically done now. I wanted to add some colour so painted over it with acrylic clay, let it dry a bit and then wiped it off. I buffed it again. 

String the beads on elastic.. Knot the ends carefully and pull the knots to be in the center of the bead. 

Done.