How to hack your clothes! Polymer clay flower button tutorial
This is a fairly quick and easy way to make your clothes completely unique.
Unless you make your own clothes or have them tailored/designed especially for you, it’s likely that most of the clothes you wear will be identical to those worn by hundreds – if not thousands – of other people. But you are not a robot! Here is a way to put your own mark on clothes, bags or shoes, and stand out from the rest of the herd…
You will need:
- Dark colour of polymer clay (approx. 12 grams)
- Light colour of polymer clay (approx 25 grams)
- Tissue blade (a.k.a. polymer clay slicer)
- Pasta machine or roller
- Acrylic roller
- Scissors, sewing needle, thread
- Optional: acrylic or glass cabochons, and 2-part epoxy glue
- Optional: drill with small drill bit (e.g. 2mm diameter)
Step-by-step instructions for making polymer clay flower buttons
Step 1: Remove one of the existing buttons from the garment, and then draw around it to create a size guide for your new buttons:
Step 2: Start with twice as much of the light colour as the dark colour…
… and then condition the clay by rolling the colours separately through the pasta machine approximately ten times (until they are soft and flexible sheets)
Step 3: Overlap the two sheets of clay so that they are the same width as the pasta machine rollers. Try to arrange the pieces so that one side of the combined sheet is all dark, and the other side is all light:
Step 4: Roll the sheet through the pasta machine (on its thickest setting), with the dark colour on one side, and the light colour on the other side:
Step 5: Keep rolling the two-colour sheet through the machine in the same direction each time, until the colours fade into each other…
(before you put the clay back through the roller, fold it in half (with light-coloured edges touching each other and dark-coloured edges touching each other) and then put it through the pasta machine, folded edge first):
Step 6: When the colours are mixed, fold the top and bottom edges of the sheet towards the middle, and then fold that sheet in half again (so that the light and dark clays are always on opposite ends of the sheet to each other):
Step 7: Starting from the light-coloured end, roll the clay through the pasta machine on its thinnest setting, to make a long ribbon of clay:
Step 8: Starting from the light-coloured end, roll the clay ribbon into a tight cylinder:
Step 9: Cut the top and bottom ends from the cylinder to make it neater:
Step 10: Cut the bullseye cane into quarters:
Step 11: Arrange all of the quarters so that the light end is facing upwards, then pinch each of them from the sides, moving downwards from top to bottom so that the sides are flattened instead of pointed:
Step 12: Arrange the canes so that their light-coloured ends are all at the top, then squeeze gently from the sides to start to reduce the cane and make it thinner. Move along the cane from one end to the other:
Step 13: Then press the cane from the top to flatten it (gradually moving from one end to the other):
Step 14: Turn it so that the dark clay is at the top, and press that side, too. Keep turning the cane and pressing along the sides and from the top, until it gets longer and thinner:
Step 15: Cut the cane in half:
Step 16: Place the two halves of the cane next to each other:
Step 17: Repeating steps 12-16 four or five times, to get thinner ‘veins’ in the petal pattern:
Step 18: Position the cane so that the dark clay is on top:
Step 19: Pinch the top of the cane into a point. Work all the way down the cane:
Step 20: More gently for the light-coloured side, press the sides so that the light end becomes rounded and the cane now looks like a petal shape. Work all the way down the cane:
Step 21: Cut a slice approximately 3mm thick from the end of the petal cane. Put the point of the petal in the very centre of the circle that you drew around the button in step 1. If the outer edge of the petal is inside the circle then the cane is the right size. But if the edge of the petal is outside the circle then reduce the cane further (you should be able to very gently pull the ends of the cane to stretch it longer and thinner, which means that the petal shape will get smaller).
Step 22: Cut 5 slices from the end of the cane that are approximately 3mm thick:
Step 23: Arrange the petals into a flower shape:
Step 24: Use a roller to gently flatten the petal canes into a flower shape. (Try not to roll it too thin – it’s better if the flower doesn’t get much bigger than the circle you drew):
Step 25:
Either: poke holes in the flowers with a needle and then bake them (at the clay manufacturer’s recommended time/temperature),
or bake the flowers and then drill holes in them.
You now have a set of flower buttons!
Step 26: Sew the button onto the piece of clothing (or bag or shoes or whatever)
Have you tried this tutorial? How did it turn out? Tweet me a photo @polymerKay :)
Or is it the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen? Send me a comment with some suggestions :)