Monday, May 25, 2009

play-doh and flower canes


2 of my fellow friends in Israel- Idit Fischer and Yonat Dascalu hade a remarkable idea about making flower canes and "getting rid" of their background easily. They made a flower cane, petals and center, then wrapped the petal with thin orange play-doh clay sheet, (which is a water base clay), the sheet was #5 in the pasta machine, and continued with wrapping the background of the flower. The play-doh will not dry when it's wrapped in the clay, Idit mentioned that she has a cane 2 weeks old and it is not dry yet.
after letting the new cane rest a bit to cool, she started to peel slowly the background and reveal the orange play-doh wrapping. this takes a while since you need to do it gently so you won't distort the flower shape. after finished all the pealing they put the backgroundless cane in the water so that the orange leftovers will be dissolved or you can put it in a strainer and wash with water.

that's it! you have a flower with out a background! worth a try!

here's a link to our hebrew forum
http://www.tapuz.co.il/tapuzForum/main/Viewmsg.asp?forum=1484&msgid=129971942
just clicked the underlined letters and you'll see the photos :)
tell us how it went!

8 comments:

  1. Hi,

    I don't understand. do they bake the cane with the play dough and then peel it off? what is the purpose of using the play dough? thanks

    Merrie

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  2. hey miriam, thank you for your comment, i will try to clear this a bit:
    they build a cane, wrap petals with play-doh, add regular polymer clay as a background, reduce, let it rest for a bit to cool, then peel the background till they see the play-doh, soak it in water to wash the play-doh left-overs and finally you'll get the flower alone reduced to small and ready to use.
    no baking in the process, only when you finish using the cane in your work :)
    thanks!

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  3. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this idea. If I'm understanding what you're saying, you make your cane routinely until you get to the packing stage. Instead of packing with colored or translucent polymer clay, you pack with play-doh? Then after you've reduced the cane, you peel off the play-doh? I wonder how long you could leave it wrapped in the play-doh? I ask this because I tend to reduce my canes to a certain point, then reduce again as I use the cane.

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  4. Arlene, the only playdoh you use is the petal wrapping, then, continue with regular polymer clay to the surrounding, the main idea is to create a seperate layer to differ the clays and keep them apart from uniting with the background.

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  5. I understand now. You use the playdough to separate the cane and the background so you can reduce it then you remove the background and soak off the playdough and you have a cane without the translucent circle. got it. great idea.
    thanks

    Merrie

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  6. Ooooooh, that's a clever idea. I'm going to have to use it.

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  7. Thank you so much for sharing this technique!! I had searched the web over trying to figure out how to get backgroundless canes. Your explanation was perfect. Thanks again

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