Easy Peasy Polymer Clay Button Tutorial

While staying with Jenny,

I am not able to fire up my torch and make beads.

Although very disappointing for me,

this has forced me to explore other media to express my creativity.

One of the other media that I have been working with is polymer clay.

This media is fun and challenging.

I'm not an artist when using this media,

but I am learning.

I have a long way to go,

but, then, glass is the same way.

Anyway, while working with polymer clay,

I thought it would be fun to make a button.

I know that there are other ways to do this, but this is what I did.

Here's what I used.

a small ball of well conditioned polymer clay,

an acrylic roller,

a small circle cookie cutter,

and a needle tool.

Easy peasy!

You can make your buttons any size you like.  I decided that I would make this one a bit thicker than the other ones I made.  I broke off about half of the polymer clay that I conditioned and rolled it into a ball that was about as high as my cookie cutter and a little bit wider.

I flattened the ball with my hands, then to get rid of the fingerprints,

I used the my rolling pin to smooth the clay out, keeping the clay round.

After smoothing out the clay, I turned my cookie cutter to the dull side and used it to make an impression on the clay.

I turned the clay over and repeated the process.

This is what it looked like when I was finished.

See what I mean, easy peasy!

Using my needle tool, I poked to holes in the button, then turned it over to make sure that the holes went all the way through.

You will notice in the final product that I do need to clean up my holes.  I'll do this with my dremel later.

They didn't turn out as I expected they would.

Here's what my button looked like before I put it in the oven to cure.

I checked the manufacturer's directions and cured the button in my little oven dedicated only to clay at the temperature recommended for about 15 minutes.

(This is where you really need to follow directions so that the clay will cure correctly.)

This is what the button looked like after curing.  I really need to work on those holes.  

However, making a button this way is easy peasy!!!