Please use Premo clay for this technique, Sculpey III is just too brittle for as thin as we are going to go.

A pasta machine is essential for this technique.

As usual, my pictures are horrid. The scans are somewhat better, but you still can't see the almost holographic look you can get with this technique.

Condition your clay. You can do this by running it thru the pasta machine about 15 to 20 times. The more the better. Well up to a point, but you can't over condition it...

You can, however, get the clay too soft and sticky. If yours feels too sticky, set it aside for a few min, or even stick it into the refrigerator.

We are using the conditioning time to line up the mica in the clay, so try to fold it the same way at least most of the time.

Roll out your clay on the thickest setting with your pasta machine.

Cut your sheet of clay into 2 equal pieces, then stack them. Keep the pieces lined up the same way they came out of the pasta machine. Brayer together, just so they stick. Trim off the edges so that you have a block. (if needed)

Now comes the fun part. Take your blade and start slicing the block of clay up. Keep the slices as even as you can, and about the width that your clay is thick.

Pick up every other slice, and turn it to lay it on it's side. It will look different, darker. It will look like stripes when you are done. (see photo below) light, dark, etc. Brayer together, just so you can pick it up.

Slicing and alternating the clay slices

Brayered sliced clay

After a couple times thru the pasta machine.

Run thru the pasta machine on thickest setting, and then, keeping the clay the same direction, run it thru at increasingly smaller settings until it's very thin.

You will have to judge for yourself when to stop, some pasta machines will start eating the clay at too narrow of settings. I got to about setting 6 on my Atlas machine.

You should end up with a fairly large sheet of =striped= clay. See how lovely that looks? :) Cut this into sizes you want to use, and lay aside for now, don't bake yet!

After many times thru the pasta machine. Notice that extra piece? I didn't brayer very well before starting.

Stamping and then cutting out the next layer. Yes, I know this picture is horrid. :)

Pieces layered and ready to bake. Another horrible photo.

Now, take another piece of clay, same or a different color, and roll thru at thick setting. Stamp into this clay, after inking with clear embossing ink. The ink is just for a release agent, so don't worry if you mess up and smear it.. Cut into a size for layering on top of the mica clay.

Carefully pick it up and lay it onto one of your mica shifted pieces. I used my blade to lift. Burnish it lightly so that it sticks to the mica clay. (that's why we used clear ink, so we don't smear the ink) Now we are ready to bake! These don't take long, 30 min @ 275 is more than enough.

After baking, fill in the stamped area with acrylic paint. What I did was just coat the whole top, dry, then sand off the excess. You can be more careful if you like. I did have to touch up a few spots where I sanded too much. :)

Let dry, then give the whole thing a coating of FFF. Bake again for 10 min. @ 250 to set the finish.

General baking instructions:

Bake polymer clay in an oven you have tested for temperature! If the oven isn't over the recommended temp, you can't overbake. But if the oven is too hot, you will burn your clay.

This space intentionally left blank.

:-)