premo! Mokume Gane Beaded Necklace

Roll a ball of the Ultralight clay that is at least as wide as your shell. Gently flatten the ball, but leave enough depth to be able to push the shell into the clay.

Spray the shell lightly with water (or dip it into a cup of water) and press it into the clay by putting your finger into the center of the shell and pressing straight down. Grasp the inside top portion of the shell and gently remove it from the clay. Inspect your mold to make sure that it is deep enough and modeled with enough detail and bake it according to the clay package directions. NOTE: I used to think that I had to have all different sizes of shell molds. I finally realized that with one good mold at the largest size I would need, that I could vary the size of the molded shell by varying the amount of clay I put into the mold!

Once the mold is baked and cooled, just roll a ball of the Premo! White Granite clay, using a little smaller amount than you think you need. Spray the mold with water and press the clay into the mold at the top of the shell.

Use your finger to spread the clay out toward the bottom of the mold. This will create the size you want and also model in the inside of the shell to a more life-like curve. Remove the molded clay from the inner top, just like we removed the shell from the original mold.

Bake the shells according to the clay package directions and allow them to cool.

You can elect to keep the shells the beautiful speckled white color that the Premo! Granite provides or you can add a little color to the shell using diluted craft paint on a cotton swab as I have to mimic the colors of our local shells. Rub the paint into the clay surface with the swab or your finger. NOTE: The am/pm pill container works great to keep a small amount of each color handy for me!

Allow the paint to dry and you've got seashells!

Roll about 1/3 of a package of the Premo! White Granite out on the #1 setting of the Clay Conditioning Machine and then set the machine on #2 and roll the clay through again.

Place the sheet of clay on a piece of unlined paper. Spray your stamp lightly with water (acts as mold release) and stamp the sand dollar image into the clay. If your sheet of clay is big enough, you can stamp the image several times.

Use the craft knife to cut out each stamped image. The outline should NOT be a perfect circle.

Create a flattened pillow of scrap clay or Ultralight clay (sand dollars are very light, so the Ultralight helps with the illusion) and place it in the center of the back of the stamped image and gently use your fingers to curve the stamped image around the flattened pillow. Note that the pillow does not go out to the edges of the stamped image.

Roll out the remaining clay on the #3 setting of the Clay Conditioning Machine and place the rounded stamped piece of clay on this sheet. Carefully trace around the edge of the stamped clay with your craft blade to create a back for the sand dollar. Use the large ball tool to round and blend the edges of the two sheets of clay, sealing the pillow of clay inside the sand dollar. When complete, the sand dollar should have a slightly rounded center with more flat edges, just like a natural sand dollar. Repeat to create as many sand dollars as you wish. Bake according to the clay package directions.

After the sand dollars have cooled, paint the top surface of the sand dollar with the light gray paint.

Immediately wipe the top surface with a moistened paper towel to remove the excess paint, leaving only the paint in the sand dollar pattern. The paint will really bring out the texture in the top of the sand dollar!

Allow the paint to dry and you've got sand dollars!

Roll out a a small sheet of the translucent green clay on the #1 setting of the Sculpey Clay Conditioning Machine. Both sheets should be about 3x4 inches. Roll two sheets of the translucent to about size.

Spread about 5 drops of the blue ink onto one of the sheets of Translucent clay, using a cotton ball to evenly cover the surface. Allow the ink to dry thoroughly. Fold the clay with the dried ink on the inside of the clay and run through the Clay Conditioning Machine until the ink is evenly distributed throughout the clay. NOTE: The blue ink is very saturated, so you don't have to cover the entire surface of the clay.

Spread about 3-4 drops of black ink on the Translucent Green clay (only cover about 1/3 of the clay). Allow the ink to dry, fold the ink to the inside of the clay and run through the Clay Conditioning Machine until the ink is distributed throughout the clay. You will now have the 3 main colors of beach glass: frosted translucent, frosted blue and frosted green.

Use the craft blade to cut out small random shapes for your glass, taking care to have no sharp corners (in natural beach glass the sharp corners are rounded off by the waves and sand).

Place each piece of clay you cut on a sheet of clean paper. Fold the paper over and gently press on the piece of clay to remove any surface imperfections. Rub the edges of the clay through the paper to soften the edges of the clay.

Repeat steps 4 and 5 for all three colors of clay until you have the amount of beach glass you need.

Transfer the finished pieces of clay to another sheet of clean paper and bake according to the clay package directions.