Preheat oven to 275 °F. Test temperature with oven thermometer for perfectly cured clay. Condition all clay by kneading until it’s soft and smooth or running it through the Clay Conditioning Machine for several passes on the widest setting. Fold the clay in half after each pass and insert the fold side into the rollers first.

Mix 1/3 block of Green with 1/6 block of White to create the lighter color green for the flower. Roll out on wide open setting on your pasta machine and cut a rectangle the usual size, roughly 4x2 inches.

Make a Skinner blend of this Green mixture to Purple.

Gently squeeze and pull the cane until its diameter is about ½ inch. It doesn’t matter if the cane is not smooth, but you can smooth it by rolling on your work surface. Cut the cane in half, if it’s too long to work with comfortably. Repeat with the other half. Set aside.

Create a Skinner blend of the White to Ultramarine Blue, using the same size rectangle as above. Gently squeeze the cane to remove excess air.

Before reducing the cane, add an outside wrap of the Fuchsia in a thin layer, such as #5 on your pasta machine. Gently squeeze and pull the cane until its diameter is about ½ inch. It doesn’t matter if the cane is not smooth, but you can smooth it by rolling on your work surface. Cut the cane in half, if it’s too long to work with comfortably. Repeat with the other half. Set aside.

Create a Skinner blend of White to Fuchsia, adding an outside wrap of the Ultramarine Blue as described above. Gently squeeze and pull the cane until its diameter is about ½ inch. It doesn’t matter if the cane is not smooth, but you can smooth it by rolling on your work surface. Cut the cane in half, if it’s too long to work with comfortably. Repeat with the other half. Set aside.

Cut one of the canes into 8 equal pieces. Keep the cane round, now use your tool to incise channels into the sides of the cane, the length of the cane. It will misshape the cane, but don’t worry – it adds to the interest of the final flower. Now if you cut a slice off – see the petal effects?

Stack the completed flowers together in a pyramid shape.

There are 2 types of leaves you can make, create both types or just one.

The first type is the SIMPLE LEAF:

Make a Green to Sea Green Skinner blend and create a cane with the blend, the Sea Green on the outside. Using your thumb and forefinger, gently pinch a ridge all along the top center of the cane half, creating a teardrop shape. Using the Needle Tool fro the Clay Tool Variety Set create 2 ridges on one side of the leaf tear drop.

The second type of leaf is A LEAF WITHOUT THE SKINNER BLEND:

Make a solid coil of the lighter green clay. Trim the ends. Roll a sheet of the darker green clay to about the thickness of a floppy disk. Lay the lighter green coil on the darker green sheet and trim behind the coil. Trim darker green to match the sides of the coil and slowly roll up until the end of the wrap touches the remaining clay. Back up the roll and trim just inside the mark the end makes on the sheet of clay. Complete the wrap now – the ends should just butt together with no overlap!

Repeat the leaf instructions beginning with the “reducing the cane” instructions.

Press the 2 leaf canes to the bottom of the pyramid stack of flowers. Press the whole assembled cane together slightly and prepare for your first cut!

Once you cut a thin slice from the cane use the Needle Tool from the clay Tool Variety Set to add a center to your flower and to add the textural details of the leaf – a center vein and side veins.

Glass is a non-porous surface so the clay will adhere quite well to it, especially since we are using such a thin layer. Isn’t that cool? Begin by lightly positioning your pieces on the glass. Once your design is complete and you are happy with it, place an index card over the designs and lightly press into final position. (No fingerprints that way!) Bake as directed – the glass won’t be harmed at such a low temperature.