Golden Switch Plate
July 22nd, 2006
After a long time, I finally found a chance to work with polymer clay. Since we are currently redecorating our bedroom, I thought of this golden switch plate to go with the newly painted hot red walls.
As the base color, translucent, fimo’s metallic white or sculpey’s pearl white can be used. I preferred the translucent white. I rolled the clay to 1mm thickness.
After placing the golden leaf on the rolled clay sheet, I used a hand roller to elongate the clay sheet and golden leaf combination. Using a baking sheet as seen in the picture helps here.
The rolling forms crack lines and helps the golden leaf to merge with the clay. You can adjust the crack sizes by changing the pressure you apply while hand rolling.
The next step is to cover the switch plate with the clay. The key point here is not to leave any air pockets between the clay and the plate. Lastly, I suggest using a coat of varnish after baking and cooling. This will increase the durability of the golden leaf.
A very simple but elegant looking switch plate…
Just curious, I know nothing about polymer so I was wondering how you can bake this plastic switch plate without melting it?
Polymer clay bakes at about 270F. I doubted at first too but I tried and it turns out that the switch plate plastic can withstand those temperatures. I made several of this kind of of switch plates and never had a melting or warping problem.