Playing with polymer clay for a charm swap

This must be the month for experimentation. First fishy watercolors and embossing, then backgrounds to make magnets, then more backgrounds, then dying and sewing fabric, then faux shrink plastic, then assemblages, then playing with brass stencils, then wax seals, and finally making hand bound books to complete and contain a few old swaps.

So I asked myself what else I hadn't drug out and worked on this month, which seems to be about experimentation and using my supplies. And of course, polymer clay came to mind.
So I drug out my pasta maker, removed my guillotine cutter in order to have room for it, and went to town.

There IS a back story to all this. I'm in a charm swap on another yahoo group and have been playing around with various ideas for charms. One thing I learned in our ABC charm swap was SIZE IS IMPORTANT, and bigger (in the charm world) is not better!!

After my shrink plastic disaster, I scrapped that idea (we DO have to practice to learn, though) and decided to make house charms either from clay or fabric. I have a house cookie cutter and three hand shaped cookie cutters that stack according to size. I spent a great deal of time yesterday looking for these and never found any of them. I did find a really cool angel and a ginger bread man, but after measuring them at their longest point, found they were each 1 1/2" long. Although they might have worked, I thought they were a bit too long for the project. Then I remembered the wax seal stamps I used just two days ago, and the concept began.
First, I apologize for the lousy photo. I took many, but none turned out well because of the silver mica powder I used as a release agent. However, here they are after they were completed. They really are much prettier in real life than in this photo.

I first stamped and cut the red "Paris" side in red clay and baked them for 15 minutes. Then I stamped and cut the blue Fleur de leis side and attached them to the red side. After assembly, I baked them for an hour. I'm quite pleased with the outcome, and think these will probably be what I send our host for the swap.