FO: Yarn bowl

This is going to be a long story about my Yarn Bowl adventure. If you want to just skip to the end to look at the finished product, I won't be offended. I just like telling stories.

I am a coupon shopper. And I go to craft stores fairly frequently. A few weeks ago, our Micheal's store spit out 2 50% off coupons with our receipts. So naturally, when we planned on going shopping last Friday night, we wanted to use the coupons. I had been mulling the idea of a yarn bowl in my head for some time, even more so after Liz Corke shared about the one she made (I think it was all the way back in March). So with our coupons, I bought oven-bake polymer clay. Liz used Fimo, but I liked the colors that Micheal's had in the Sculpey clays (no, I am not being paid to endorse).

My 3 clays

I ended up splurging a bit and bought the Micheal's brand (CraftSmart) 1 lb clay in white, since I had no idea how much clay Liz used to make her bowl. With the 2 coupons (my mom bought one of the clays) I paid under $10 for all 3 clays. (I could go into a rant here about Micheal's odd coupon policy, because it drives me nuts, and they will only accept one coupon per order, even if you have more than one item...) Anyway. Polymer clay. I bought the CraftSmart because I figured that they are all polymer clays, and all bake at the same temperature, so why does brand matter, right?

Making "lace canes"

Of course, I got home and immediately got to work. I spent some time looking up how to properly use polymer clay, and found that it needs to be "conditioned"- basically, you need to spend some time working with the clay to make sure it is smooth, etc. I got a little creative, because I remember when we were younger, we had a book on how to make a variety of things with polymer clay, and I remember thinking that making beads was the coolest. So I made a lace cane with my blue and silver clays. I used about half of both the blue and the silver, and my hands were the weirdest color. Then I hacked into the big pound of clay. I started by cutting it in half, but that was too much for my small hands, so I broke it down even further. I experimented with several ways to shape the bowl, but I really wanted something to guide me. But, by that time, it was getting late, and I knew my boyfriend was coming over the next day, so I covered everything up and went to bed.

Saturday, the goal was to go to Goodwill and find something oven-safe to shape my yarn bowl around. (I got a little distracted, as you can read here.) I didn't get back to my yarn bowl until the evening, while we were watching the Emperor's New Groove (OMG, such a fun movie). Basically, once my bowl was shaped around my thrifted dish, I was able to add the lace cane in pieces for color. It isn't perfect, and I would probably try more contrasting colors if I ever did this project again.



Also a note, you probably are smart enough to cover your bowl with foil or something, but I forgot that step. After baking, it was kinda stuck. But I persevered, and managed to get it off the next day.

More Notes: Make the yarn "slot" more curved. I used the handle on my thrifted bowl as a guide, and it was not big enough. Also, make the bowl taller. I totally neglected this bit, and while the bowl mostly serves its purpose, it could probably be taller to better hold a ball of yarn.

Overall, it was a fairly successful experiment, and I have at least half the clay left (of all the colors) to try this again another time. I will probably get more adventurous in my color choices if I buy more clay. And I would definitely suggest using a coupon to buy a big block of neutral colored clay, especially if you want to use colors as accents, like I did.

Joining with Tami's Amis for FO Friday!

Our engagement date and initials

Yes, I am trying to show off my new piece of jewelry.