No pictures for this class, sorry! Just the sample picture.

First off, you need to use small stamps for this, that will fit inside the cookie cutters. I used a couple small shells from Evolving Images. Or, if you don't have small cutters, you can just cut out around the clay with an exacto knife.

But it's MUCH easier to use cookie cutters! I think the ones I have are Wilton canape cutters. The pin on the lower left was just cut with a knife, it was almost too much work. I only did about a dozen that way.

Condition your clay. You can do this by kneading it or by running it thru a pasta machine about 15 to 20 times. The more the better.

Roll out your clay on the thickest setting with your pasta machine. If you don't have a pasta machine, use a rolling pin and something on either side to keep the clay even.

This could be stacks of playing cards, or pieces of cardboard, whatever you happen to have handy. You want your clay to end up between 1/16 and 1/8 of an inch.

Get one of the stamps you are using, and pour a pile of Pearl-Ex onto a sheet of paper. Stamp the Pearl-Ex =lightly= with the stamp. Check to see if you have good coverage, and don't worry if it seems to clump. Take a small paintbrush and swipe some off if you need to.

Stamp the clay with the Pearl-Ex covered image. Press firmly, but don't go all the way thru the clay! Remove the stamp from the clay, apply more Pearl-Ex, and repeat. Don't forget to leave enough room around images to cut them out! In fact, just do a couple, then check your spacing.

After you have the sheet of clay pretty well covered with images, use your finger and lightly burnish all the images. This will help make the Pearl-Ex bond with the clay. It also covers up where you may have missed, or got too much Pearl-Ex on.

Now get your cutter and start cutting out the images. Press that cutter in! If you haven't got a cutter, use your exacto blade to cut the clay, squares and rectangles are easiest. I used a ruler, that helped a lot.

Once you are all cut out, you are ready to bake. Peel away any leftover bits of clay if you used cookie cutters, and run them back thru the pasta machine to make more pins.

If you used a knife, seperate your images so they don't stick to each other while baking. Bake these for 20 min. at 275 degrees F.

Once out of the oven and cool, attach pin backs if you are using TLS. If not, gluing will be your final step. With TLS in a squeeze bottle, put a stripe down the middle of each BACK side of the pins. Place your pinback into the TLS, and make sure the TLS gooshes up to hold it good.

Rebake, about 15 min. this time.

Cooled again, turn right side up, and give each pin a light coat of Future (or your choice of glaze) Once the Future is dry you can bake again for 10 min. to set it.

Alternate Glue method: After glazing with Future and dry, turn face down and glue pin backs on with a good heavy duty glue. I've used Duco Cement with some success. Any strong glue that will bond the clay and pinbacks will work.

I also wrote on the backs of my pins, using a silver gel pen. No one has emailed me yet... so that was prolly a waste of time. LOL! However, I got a couple really neat pins with email addresses on em, and I haven't gotten around to mailing them....

Have fun, and trade pins! Save one for me!

Oh, and even tho I used Sculpey III for most of my pins, they were pretty tough. I dropped and stepped on a few, bent the pinbacks, but didn't hurt the clay.

One of my biggest gripes about the pins I got in exchange at Grapevine was the ones using self stick pinbacks. Those fell apart in 30 seconds flat. Bleah! Or how about the really nicely laminated pin, with the pinback =taped= on with tiny strips of tape. That hardly made it into my hand without falling apart.