Play doh and Poly clay

Inspired by this post that has been the talk of the polymer clay interwebs recently, I undertook some experimentation to see if I could use play doh instead of wax to make a bead-in-bead structure (ala this tutorial from Desiree). Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures yet, because other things (not the play doh concept part) went wrong with the piece I was working on, but I thought I'd go ahead and write up the steps, and add pictures when I have some.

1. Pick/make your inner bead. Make sure it is fireable and small enough to move around freely in your intended casing. (One of the primary fail points in the first one I made was that the inner ball was too big and too irregular to move pleasingly)

2. Cover your inner bead with play doh until it is the size you want bead+cavity to be.

3. Allow play doh to dry (theoretically) or bake (what I did). Sand to remove imperfections. (Fail point #2: I initially tried to apply outer bead layer without baking play doh first - it doesn't work because of the smooshiness)

4. Add clay for outer bead. Make sure you have vents for the play doh (and expanding air, for that matter) to come out. Bake.

5. Put piece in bowl of water overnight.

6. Rinse piece. The play doh - even baked - dissolves in the water.

Voila! Finished bead without the difficulties of locating/working with wax.

Typing this up made me excited about the possibilities all over again!