Polymer Clay Flower Button Tutorial
About this time last year, a button fell off my favourite coat, and so I decided to get rid of the rest of the boring old round buttons and replace them with some bright orange/yellow polymer clay flowers instead.
That led to this step-by-step tutorial, showing the process of creating the buttons:
…and here is what they looked like on my (still favourite) coat:
To be honest sometimes I wonder if having flowers for buttons makes me look like a bit of a wackadoodle artist-type. But then I realise that if I do look that way then I’m fine with that. I celebrate my flowery buttons as a sign that I am thinking outside the boundaries of what is a ‘normal’ button, and I reject the idea that we should all wear the same clothes and the same colours as each other just because it’s ‘fashion’. So there.
Then last week a button fell off my winter coat. And so having already set a precedent for replacing boring round black coat buttons with flowers instead, I’ve decided that the time has come for another coat to get a flower button makeover.
This time I fancied a different colour and different design. It used my “Dunc” flower design. So here is my
“Blue and White Polymer Clay Flower Button Tutorial”:
You will need:
- Approx. 28g of white polymer clay (about half a standard block)
- Approx. 28g of blue polymer clay (another half of a standard block)
- Pasta machine or clay roller (examples on Amazon)
- Tissue blade a.k.a clay slicer (examples on Amazon)
Instructions
Step 0: Condition the clays.
Step 1 – Create a Skinner Blend bullseye cane. (This one turned out very wiggly for some reason, but it really doesn’t matter because the colours will all be blended later anyway.)
Step 2 – Cut the blue and white cane in half, as shown:
Step 3 – Cut each half down the middle:
Step 4 – Arrange/rotate the semicircles so that they are in the layout below (i.e. so that they look a bit like the letters ‘D’, ‘u’, ‘n’, and ‘c’:
Step 5 – Squeeze each cane from the sides so that they are all roughly the same width:
Step 6 – Press all four canes together:
Step 7 – Reduce the cane so it is approximately 10cm (4ins) long:
Step 8 – Cut the can in half, and stack the two halves side by side:
Step 9 – Reduce that cane to approx. 10cm (4ins) long:
Step 10 – Cut the cane in half and stack the two halves side by side again:
Step 11 – Reduce the cane again:
Step 12 – Starting from one end of the cane and moving along its length, pinch the top two corners together to make a point. Then working down the length of the cane again, shape the cane so that it becomes more rounded:
Step 13 – Take some of the scrap blue/white clays and add darker blues (and/or a little black) to the clay:
Step 14 – Roll the clay through the pasta machine on the thinnest setting until the colours are mixed together:
Step 15 – Cover the pointed edge of the cane with a very thin layer of darker blue, then reduce the cane even further:
Step 16 – Cut five petals from the cane, with a width of approx. 5mm (1/5in) each:
Step 17 – Arrange the five petals into a flower shape as shown below:
Step 18 – Gently press the segments of clay onto a glass or tile so that the five petals merge into one single flower shape. (Optional: If you don’t have a drill, at this stage you can use a needle or cocktail stick to make two or four holes in the buttons.):
Step 19 – Bake the buttons according to the clay manufacturer’s instructions.
Step 20 – If you haven’t already made holes in the buttons, use a drill to make two or four holes in the buttons:
Finished buttons on the coat:
I hope you found the “Polymer Clay Flower Button Tutorial” useful. Please give feedback via the comments section or the contact us page or via Twitter or Facebook (@PolymerKay). Thanks!