This article demonstrates how to make a simple polymer clay flower letter cane (or letter flower cane!) These canes are great for making buttons, beads, or signature canes, and are fairly quick and easy to create.

Flower letter from front - Kay Vincent

Many years ago I wrote a how-to article about my ‘Never Fail Flower Cane’ design (which is still on the British Polymer Clay Guild’s website. Click the link below to go straight to the article.)

Never Fail Flower Cane - Kay Vincent
Screenshot of Never-Fail Flower cane article

…and recently I finished my step-by-step series on How to Make Polymer Clay Alphabet Canes

Polymer clay alphabet canes series

…so now today’s article combines the two designs, and shows how to make a flower design with a letter on the inside (or a letter design with a flower on the outside, depending on your preference):


You will need:

clays for letter flower cane

Instructions for Making the Polymer Clay Flower Letter Cane

Step 0) Condition the clay. (Here is a tutorial about conditioning clay with a pasta machine.)

1) Roll out the black clay as thinly as possible.

sheet of black polymer clay

2) Cover the letter cane with one layer of the thin black sheet of clay. Trim off any excess black clay.

wrap letter with black clay

3) Roll the yellow clay into a cylinder approximately 10cm (4ins) long, and cover it with one layer of the black clay. Trim off any excess black clay.

wrap yellow cylinder with black clay

4) Roll out the cylinder into a snake about 15cm (6ins) long, and cut into sections approx. 3cm (1.3ins) long.

roll out yellow cylinder and cut into sections

5) Flatten the pieces and bend each flattened log into a ‘U’ shape, to make petals.

6) Arrange the petals around the letter cane

arrange petals around letter - KayVincent - Polymer Kay

7) Insert green triangles

polymer clay flower letter cane - insert green pieces between petals - KayVincent

8) Reduce the cane.

Finished flower letter cane:

polymer clay flower letter cane with slice - KayVincent

I hope you found this useful. If you’ve tried this technique and found it useful (or if there was anything in it that I could make clearer) please let me know!