Boost the romance in your jewellery box with our delicate polymer clay flowers

What you need...

• Polymer clay: cerise, white, orange
  
• Gemstones, glass, flatbacked: pink, 3mm; orange, 6mm
  
• Tool, ball-ended, medium
  
• Pins, bead piercing
  
• Punch, tiny flower
  
• Cutter, circle, 1cm diameter
  
• Varnish, gloss
  
• Jewellery findings, brass: head pins; jump rings; eye pins; flat cameo settings; chain; clasp; flat pad ring blank
  
• Beads, glass, crystal: pink, coral, bronze
  
• Cocktail sticks

instructions

1. Ring - 1 Mix together small balls of fuchsia, orange and white clay to create coral. Roll into a sheet, 2mm, then lay onto the baking
   surface and cut a circle, 1cm diameter, to use as a base.
   
   2 Roll the remaining clay into a sausage and cut into equal-sized slices, then roll in the palm of your hand. Use the ball-ended
   tool to flatten it, making a curved petal shape.
   
   3 Work the tool more on one side of the petal shape to make the clay thinner. Pinch the opposite side of the petal and fix to the centre of the clay disc. Repeat, arranging the petals on the disc so they overlap.
   
   4 Press a large flatbacked gem in the centre. Carefully manipulate the edges of the petals into waves and curls with a pair of cocktail sticks.
   
   5 Bake at 110°C/230°F for 30 minutes and allow to cool. Coat the flower with clear gloss varnish and, when dry, glue to a flat pad ring blank with strong jewellery adhesive.

2. Necklace - 1 Create more colours of clay by mixing orange, fuchsia and white. Make a selection of smaller flowers, as before, but press a bead piercing pin across the surface of the base disc before adding the petals.
   
   2 When the flower is complete make sure the pin will twist in its groove before baking, otherwise it will be difficult to remove. Create a centrepiece by attaching a flat cameo setting with jump rings.
   
   3 Press a small ball of coloured clay onto the centre of the setting. Smooth to the edges of the indentation, making a rounded base to work on. Press 3mm flat-backed gems into the clay to form a border.
   
   4 Blend a little fuchsia with white to make a pale pink and roll out very thinly. Chill for a few minutes to make it more stable before placing in a tiny flower paper punch.
   
   5 Place the punch upside down and keep it depressed while you remove the clay flower with a craft knife. Arrange small flowers on
   the dome and use a pin to prick several dents.
   
   6 Flatten a little coral clay into a small sausage shape. Roll the flat strip from one end to make a rosebud, then surround this with three or four flattened circles of clay to make petals.
   
   7 Carefully place in one corner of the surround, using a cocktail stick under the petals to press the base in place securely. Fill in
   underneath the petals with more single rolled buds.
   
   8 Bake and coat with gloss varnish when cooled. Fix a short length of chain to the top of the cameo setting with a jump ring, then thread an eye pin through the hole in each flower bead and bend the end into a loop.
   
   9 Thread assorted glass beads onto eye pins and loop the ends. Connect with jump rings and arrange either side of the central motif, then chain to either end.
   
   10 Thread small crystals onto head pins and trim the ends of each pin to 1cm from the top of the bead, then bend into a loop. Use to decorate the connecting jump rings and the bottom of the cameo setting.