Well, I'm a beader not a polymer clay artist, but recently saw the wonderful rock purses done for a swap. And wound up just HAVING to join Polymer Clay People mailing list, which you can find here. For lots of information about polymer clay I highly recommend The Glass Attic She's done a lot of work on complining a fantastic list of resources and information.

Well.. Having found this wonderful list inspired me, and I created little boxes formed around shooter sized marbles, unfortunately I don't have a scanner or a digital camera so I can't show you how they turned out yet, but I can give you instructions, I was really happy with them!

These instructions are for an apple box, but obviously feel free to use your imagination anyway you want to make your own box, pumpkins for Halloween, something with canes on it, whatever.. 

Start by dusting a shooter type marble with powder, and then covering with polymer clay about an 1/8 of an inch thick, it needs to be this thick to help keep it from breaking when you take the parts off the marble.

Indent the top slightly and add a stem and leaf.Use a blunt tool to mark a line around the horizontal meridian of the piece, this indents it slightly so when you cut it looks a lot neater.

Put holes over and under the centerline mark on both sides (the front and the back)

At this point you can add any shading you want using eyeshadow, like a soft pink highlights or whatever, bake according to instructions on package. When it comes out take a razor blade and slice all the way around the marble at the incised line you marked earlier while it's still warm, pull the polymer clay carefully off the marbles and run a piece of 1/8 inch ribbon from the front of the top half of the box through to the back, then out the hole on the back of the the top half , then thread through the bottom half of the box the same way, this forms both the hinge and the closure, glue the ribbon that is inside the box into the box.

Let the glue dry, and when dry, close it and tie a pretty bow with the two loose ends in front! Hmm.. maybe a good teachers gift?