"Black Pearl" Clay and the PCE BeadMaker

Make Black Pearl or Hematite or Pale Silver Pearl Clay
	This is about one 2-oz pkg. of Premo White Pearl. Smear 4-6 drops of diluent over the sheet.	Sprinkle about a half a teaspoon of the black oxide powder over the diluent. Here comes the messy part....
Cover your hands by either wearing gloves or putting plastic bags over them. Carefully spread the black oxide powder over the clay. Work slowly, because the powder tends to "fly away" and get everywhere.	Cut the sheets into sections and stack them up. Squeeze them together and either let them sit for a while to make the mixing less messy, or go ahead and knead and twist until the color is well mixed.	The powder adds very little opacity to this translucent clay, and you can get every shade from your original white pearl to pale, glowing platinum to a beautiful deep hematite. Click to see a better picture. I'm still crazy about Mike B's techniques, and still use them often... these are some lockets made using his methods.

Black Oxide powder is available on our Powders page .

Some ideas for using the PCE BeadMaker
Cute little thing! The PCE BeadMaker comes with a trough and three paddles.	Try chopping up some colors you like and rolling a ball of your base color through the bits.	Roll the ball smooth, and then shape it into a log.
Make the log the same diameter as the space between the trough and the paddle.	Cut a piece from the log about 2/3rds as long as the paddle is wide.	Lay the log at one end of the trough, and with the paddle, roll the clay to the other end.
The colors will begin to form a "U" shape on the surface. Pick the bead up.....	... and put it back at the other end, being careful to not turn it around and get that "U" shape dipping in the other direction.	Repeat the rolling and repositioning until you get the level of moire' patterning that you like. It takes very few passes to get the perfect shape, but it could take a dozen to get lots of pattern.
A patterned bead can be pressed flat top to bottom to make disks with spiral designs. Any oval can be pressed side to side for an interesting shape.	Drill holes while pressing to minimize distortion. Drills can be made top to bottom or side to side. You can cut the pointed oval in half and when the halves are pressed, they become similar spiralled buttons.	The oval can be shaped and drilled before curing, or cured as they are made. The crescent has been formed and drilled to act as a fitting for a buna cord bead-and-loop clasp.