My friend has an online business making earrings with oven-bake polymer clay. She explores the medium through different colours that can in turn create different patterns, and through different shapes as well, allowing her to create a myriad of designs.
Process documentation
My friend usually begins with an idea of what the end product of the earring will look like. With that idea in mind, she selects the colours of the clay that she will be using and sets them aside. She has a piece of baking sheet set up on her table for her to roll and flatten the clay on so that the clay will not stick to the surface of her table. She then rolls the clay into her desired design before poking holes into the pieces of clay (to attach the earring hooks) and baking them.
Tools Used
The tools that she uses varies from formal tools meant for jewelry making to make-shift ones.
She also makes use of toothpicks and satay sticks in order to poke the holes in the clay, and the oven in her home to bake the clay.
Workspace
Pain points
Another particular issue that she faced was that she found it tough to work with pure white clay as dust got caught on it easily and was very visible (which is why she often had to mix it with other colours).
Sometimes, due to air bubbles, the clay would also crack after being baked.