Making a Cane
Polymer clay is a "plastic clay" and comes in a number of brand names and an assortment of colors. These colors can be mixed to give an almost unlimited range.

Canes are made of images built linearly, so that the same image runs the length of the entire cane. The canes are rolled out much like candycanes, decreasing in size and lengthening as they're rolled.

For this cane, I started with the eyes. One tiny roll of light green surrounded by blue and wrapped with black clay. The eye cane was then wrapped in a thicker sheet of white that would become part of the cat's face.

The eye cane was decreased and then cut into two pieces to form the two eyes. An assortment of wedges, rolls and sheets of additional clay were pieced together to form the remainder of the face.

Pieces of black and grey clay were added to the cat face to define the head. Both ears were made from another cane. A third cane of graduated shades became the chest and assorted shapes were pieced together to form the rest of the body and the tail.

The final step was to "pack" the area surrounding the image with a background color to form a round cane. A slightly darker border color was added as a finishing touch. This cane, when completed, measured 2 3/4" in diameter and 2 1/2" deep.

When the cane was completed, it was rolled down to the various sizes for use on the finished beads. Thin slices of an assortment of canes were added to pieces of shaped clay, and pressed together to form the finished patterns. Once the hole was drilled, the bead was smoothed and baked to finish the work.