Steampunk heart!

Materials used: Old wristwatch gears and parts, Kato Polyclay, jump rings, hinge, large fabricated gear.

Process: After conditioning copper and silver Kato Polyclay, I combined the two colors and repeatedly rolled out the blend until I got an arrangement that looked like old scrap metal with enough variation to be visually appealing. I hand-formed the heart shape, then sliced the heart in half in order to press in the gear to be used for attaching the finished heart to a cord or necklace. I also added other embellishments at that point in time (the jumprings and the spiky end of watch crowns). After reattaching the heart and smoothing out the seam, I then sliced out the front right quarter of the heart using an X-Acto knife. I hollowed out the main body of the heart as well as the inside of the quarter heart to make room for gears. Texture was added using carving tools, and the gears were pressed into the clay. I attached the hinge to the body of the heart and baked the two pieces separately. I baked the clay on foil and tissue in my toaster oven according to Kato Polyclay's directions, then once the heart pieces cooled I marked out the drill holes for the hinge to be attached to the quarter heart, pre-drilled the holes, then attached the hinge using the screws that were packaged with the hinge (I did have to trim the tips of the screws to prevent them from poking through the clay).

Notes:
This was my first time working with Kato Polyclay (or any other polymer clay brand, such as Sculpey or Fimo), so I'm thrilled with the overall success of the piece (i.e. I didn't burn it to an awful-smelling crisp, though the piece did do some ominous smoking and emanated an unpleasant odor during the first several minutes of baking). The edges did do some minor cracking where I tried to blend the seam, but it's held up well so far after at least one drop onto parking lot pavement. Overall, I think I'll continue to use Kato Polyclay for now. If I ever give Fimo or Sculpey a try, I'll post the results here!

The photograph is of the incomplete piece before I attached the quarter heart to the hinge.