Finished product you will have if you follow this tutorial.
Here is what you will need: Whatever colors of clay you like. They need to contrast well. I used fimo soft in black, copper, gold and silver. A straight tissue blade, a curvy blade as pictured above, varathane or future floor finish, armor all (releasing agent so your clay doesn’t stick to your cookie cutter), oven (I use toaster oven with a thermometer cause baking your clay at the correct temperature is super important), baby wipes for cleaning your surface and your blades between using different colors of clay (to avoid contamination), ceramic tiles which are used as the work surface and can be put in the oven for baking the clay, pasta machine for rolling clay sheets, acrylic roller or brayer. I think that is it.
I cut two bars off of my clay from the package and condition it (roll it in my hands in a log until bending the log in half doesn’t cause it to crumble or crack). This mixes the ingredients in the clay and warms it up so that it is uniform. I finish the conditioning in the pasta machine, then roll out my sheets at a thin setting (5 on my pasta machine, which has 1 as the thickest, and 9 as the thinnest setting. I use a square template I made from cardstock to cut one 4 inch square of each color, except black – 2 squares of black.
Make your squares as above for each color and set aside.
I wear gloves because fingerprints in my finished products drive me bonkers. Begin by stacking your silver sheet (or whatever color you use) on top of the black, starting at one edge and slowly going across to the other edge.
Roll with your brayer or acrylic roller, and use a blade or craft knife to puncture any air bubbles.
Next I placed my other black sheet on top of the silver, then the gold, then the copper, smoothing with the acrylic brayer and puncturing any air bubbles, then re-smoothing with the brayer.
Cut the stack in half, and place one half on top of the other, keeping the colors in the same order, as below…
Now roll with roller until stack is half as thick. This doesn’t have to be perfect, as differences in pressure only make the final design more interesting. Cut in half and stack again.
Roll to half thickness, cut in half and stack. Now you have your block and are ready to cut slices to use for beads, pendants, whatever.
Before slicing with your curvy blade, let your block cool (the clay is warm after all the conditioning and handling, and will smear when cut warm. I put mine in the fridge on my ceramic tile for an hour before cutting. Turn the block on its side as pictured and slice thinly, but thick enough that you have a complete square (the blade shouldn’t come through on the front side of your slice.








