Polymer clay can imitate just about any substance from turquoise, to amber, to red coral, to lapis lazuli, and just about any other stone you’ve seen. Beach glass, fordite, ceramic, and different metals. You can do it all.
Tory Hughes was, I believe, the first polymer artist to popularize faux techniques in polymer clay, first through her work, then through her videos, then in her book, Polymer – The Chameleon Clay (2002).
I tried most of the faux techniques when I first started working in polymer back in the stone age. (here’s an example), but I haven’t tried any of the imitative techniques lately. Then a friend gave me a lovely Southwestern silver cuff bracelet set with different colors of turquoise, onyx, coral and mother of pearl. Some of the stones had fallen out. Could I recreate them in polymer? Why not try? I don’t have any “before” pictures of the bracelet, but I am happy with how it turned out.
I used Premo translucent, white, and a bit of pearl and silver for the mother of pearl and a combination of a Premo blue mixture, green, translucent, and a smidge of black for the turquoise. I did my best to match the colors to the stones in the bracelet, baked them, and then trimmed and filed them to fit into the bracelet. I couldn’t bake them in the bracelet because the real stones are held in with epoxy which would have melted in my oven. Then I would have had to reglue all the stones!
Here’s one of the faux turquoise pieces and a tiny chip of faux mother of pearl that I glued into the bracelet with fresh epoxy. I roughed up the baked polymer and the metal as best I could before gluing. I left a dab of the mixed epoxy on my work table to make sure it cured thoroughly.
I hope my friend likes the results.
Ornamento 
Absolutely stunning. And great job matching the colors and fitting the new stones into the bracelet.
Thanks Arlene!