About the author.
My name is Lucie Štruncová but you may know me by my nickname “Lucy” which I’ve been using for quite a long time now. My polymer addiction started quite a few years ago. As for everybody, the beginnings were rough. I remember that once I tried to play with a cube of glittering polymer and I cut out these “awesome” treble clefs. I couldn’t even imagine the possibilities of polymer clay and how many people actually worked with it. In short, I’ve simply discovered things gradually on my own. I visited my first course by Veronika Sturdy about a year later and there it all started. Courses followed curses and ideas kept on coming. I needed to practice; I needed to put something of myself into my products. I can’t tell you how much I’m succeeding in it but every time, and wherever I work (whether at home or at a course) I try really hard to put something from me in every piece, to make it unique. I was honored to meet and learn from many foreign instructors from all over the world. Lecturers have taught me a lot but now I’m focusing on my own work, courses, and e-books… I love writing these guides for you and I want to pass as much knowledge to you as possible. Besides my own production, I also work at LC Tools which is a business that we’ve started with my father. I try to promote, test and design our products, which make the work easier for all of you handy girls. I guess I’m kind of a “mom” of all this stuff. I sincerely hope that the polymer clay will win you over as well. Give yourself a chance to develop your own creativity and believe me that this amazing material has a great future! You can learn more about me and about my techniques at www.lucystruncova.com.
Materials and supplies:
• • Extensions from LC Disk 5 “grain of rice” and two „filling“ extensions (in the picture).
• Two blends of your choice, black and white clay
When I once participated in Donna Kato’s course, she gave me her canes with a Rice pattern. I have tried to reduce them but it didn‘t go very well and on the top of it the whole technique of making this pattern (which was Donna showing) was extremely complicated and slow going… it took me such a long time until I have figured out how to do this Rice cane in an easy way. Without complicated reducing and most importantly fast. With the help of new LCD5 disk. Donna‘s technique is on sale on Craftartedu.
Step 1.
Take two blended sheets and run them through clay machine on the thinnest setting and roll it into a spiral.
Step 2.
Extrude the rolls through the “grain of rice” extension from LC Disk 5, also make two more rolls from black and white clay, which are going to have the same diameter as the body of Czextruder. As you have this ready, prepare the other extension disk looking like a triangle.
Step 3.
Extrude black and white rolls. It is good to clean the body of Czextruder regularly by a Cleaning Brush by Lucy Clay.
Step 4.
Take the first two extrusions. The white one should be two times longer than the length of “grain of rice” extrusion. Cut the longer one on half and put the “grain of rice” extrusion into the first white half, make sure there are no air bubbles.
Step 5.
Place the second white half and you will get a square snake. Repeat the same procedure with brown “grain of rice” and black filling. It is good to reduce the pattern a little bit or to roll it very gently so both halves stay together.
Step 6.
Press together both patterns (black and white), so that both sides point toward the center. Cut the connected patterns into halves and turn one half over 180° and place it to the first half. And gain all four “grains of rice” have to point the center. The pattern is ready! :))
Step 7.
Thanks to how easy it is to work with Czextruder, there is no need to measure anything and thus it’s possible to experiment a lot.
Step 8.
When you cut the extrudes in half and place together (same as the pattern before) you will get a totally different pattern. You can place it together so the “grains of rice” point toward the middle and black fillings are touching each other.
Step 9.
Or the opposite – “the grains of rice” are pointing to the center into a circle and white fillings are touching each other. It would be impossible to make this pattern by hand, and if so it wouldn‘t be quite exact as this one.
Step 10.
You can then easily cut the pattern using an LC Slicer or Mini Slicer and use it to make your jewelry.
Step 11.
Here I was experimenting a little and I have cut the cane in two triangles. I’ve put them together into a larger triangle, split them in half again and put them back together. So some kind of experimental kaleidoscope.
Step 12.
The “grain of rice” cane can also be made in a totally different way. The “grains of rice” can be placed in one direction.
Step 13.
You can repeat the same procedure to the other filling attachment. You will get a rectangle instead of a square after placing the parts (rices of grain and filling) together.
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