Polymer Clay Bows are so simple and fun to make. Here is a tutorial.
You will need: Polymer Clay, an old chopping board or plastic mat to work on, a cutting implement, a glass jar or old rolling pin, nail polish (optional), an oven!
1. Spilt your clay in half.
2. Roll into balls.
3. Roll out the balls of clay into sausages.
4. Flatten out with rolling pin or glass jar.
5. Neaten up edges of clay.
6. Pinch two on the end corners together and bring into the centre.
7. Repeat with other end of clay - you may need to trim some of the clay off so that they sit close together.
8. Trim around the clay to leave a bow shape.
9. Make two sausages a little smaller than the bows. Flatten them out into ovals with rolling pin.
10. Place bows onto the top of the ovals. Cut out a triangle shape in centre.
11. Get two smaller balls of clay and flatten out as pictured.
12. Wrap this length of clay around the centre of bow. Trim as necessary.
13. Place bows onto baking sheet. Bake to packet instructions (I baked this sized bow at 130oC/275oF for 25mins).
14. Allow the bows to cool slightly. Apply nail polish or polymer clay gloss for a lovely finish (as the black clay is quite grey I used a black nail polish).
Polymer clay is available at most craft stores and art supply shops. It's usually about $4 a packet. I used one and a half packets for these. You could make these bows into anything! Earrings, necklace pendants, charms, rings, brooches, belt buckles, hair clips or handbag clips as a few suggestions. I've already done most of these!
I made today's bows into shoe-clips. I purchased the shoe-clip findings off ebay (they were very cheap) and used a glue gun to attach them. I glued felt between the finding and the bow to help strengthen the bond.
Here are some tutorials off youtube too. This is where I first got the inspiration to make polymer clay bows. I love both of these as they demonstrate how easy and quick bows are to make! The methods here are slightly different to mine but work just as well. The bow rings in the first video are so much fun! The second video features a slightly different style that is super cute and pretty.
