Color Palettes that Stand Out

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Color Palettes To Help Your Work Stand Out: Mid-Century Modern Box by KatersAcres
Fall Berries Color Palette & Color Recipe for Polymer Clay by KatersAcres

Wonderfully coordinated color palettes are one of the things that truly spark my creativity and light up my creative life. In much of the art world, things that speak to a person happen through good design and color. Every person has a color or a specific color palette that aligns with their soul, mood, personality, and even the design scheme of their home. In the opening season of the TV show Frasier, his producer goes to his home for the first time and says, “Exactly as I imagined, beige everywhere.” Most of the time, even our personalities tend to say a lot about our color and color preferences. For many artists, our color palette tends to reflect ourselves and not that of our customers or buyers. Well-seasoned artists do both and do it well; they design with their own specific color palettes but also keep their customers in mind.

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How to Clean Your Studio in 15 Minutes

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A Guide on How to Clean Your Polymer Clay Studio in Less Than 15 Minutes on KatersAcres Blog

There are a lot of things that I love about having my own studio in a separate area from the everyday areas of my house.  One of which is that I can shut the door (and even lock it if I want to)…and come back whenever I want.  But here’s the neurotic part of me…I like my studio clean.  In fact on any given day, my studio can be cleaner than the rest of my house.  Why? Because that’s the way I like it! How? In less than 15 minutes I can clean the whole thing from top to bottom, even though the kitty lives in here with me.  Read how to clean you can learn to clean up your studio and to keep it clean in less than 15 minutes with just a small bit of patience and time commitment.

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Floss Box Clay Storage Solution

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Polymer Clay Storage Solutions by KatersAcres

Clay storage is a challenge for anyone who works with polymer clay, especially when 80% of clayers are working in a space the size of a closet. One of the hardest things about having a small studio is having adequate space to store things in, especially blocks, more blocks, and pounds of clay.  This is especially hard for me, who may need multiple brands of clay, custom blends, inclusions, etc.  Today I’m going to share with you how I store my opened packs of polymer clay, the clay that is constantly being used.

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10 Polymer Clay Tips & Tricks

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Polymer Clay Tips from KatersAcres

As with all things in life, we pick some things up and get good at them…and yet with other things we need help.  I am a 100% self-taught polymer clay artist.  I have purchased several polymer clay books and use several very religiously.  Here are 10 hints, tips, & tricks for working with polymer clay that you may not already know or thought of that will help you in your own polymer clay jouney.

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How to Use Blending Chalks on Polymer Clay

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How to Use Blending Chalks on Polymer Clay by KatersAcres

What Are Blending Chalks?

How to Use Blending Chalks on Polymer Clay by KatersAcres

Blending chalks are just that, chalks that are blendable. Blending chalks can also be called chalk pastels or soft pastel chalks. Chalks can be used on a variety of surfaces, including polymer clay. Their color can be easily applied with a brush, sponge-tip applicator, and a variety of other applications.

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Mica Powder Highlight in Sculpting with Polymer Clay

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Using Mica Powder to Add Highlights to Your Facial Sculptures from Kater's Acres

Mica powder has always been great for polymer clay artists as a surface treatment. Traditionally in the polymer clay world, mica powder has been used for jewelry artists and as an “all over” treatment for sculptors. But did you know that mica can also be used in wonderful and surprising ways for sculpting too? Even on facial and realistic sculptures? Mica powder highlight is a wonderful trick that if you don’t know, you should get to know and use in your sculpting.

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How to Use Our Mica Powders

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Mica Powders from Kater's Acres

So what is mica powder? In a nutshell and simply explained, mica is a mineral [a rock] that has a reflective and metallic look to it. When it is ground and made into a powder it retains those natural properties. Make is found both in the earth, from the ground and is lab-created (which is most often these days). The larger the particles that mica contains, the more sparkly and shiny it is and becomes.

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Top Five Mixing Clay Colors

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Top Five Polymer Clay Mixing Colors by KatersAcres

If you are familiar with making your own color recipes or color palettes, then you probably have familiarized yourself with your favorite polymer clay colors to use for mixing clay colors. If you aren’t familiar with the way that I mix colors you can get my clay mixing worksheet here. Without further ado, let me show you what top five mixing clay colors I can’t be without.

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Polymer Clay Tips: Productivity in Your Studio

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Polymer Clay Tips from KatersAcres

How to Be Productive in Your Studio

Helping each of you with polymer clay tips is one of those things that I really love!  Why? Because I love helping people. I love helping you succeed and I love helping you on your creative journeys. I hope some of these small tips help you achieve your goals in your studio.  So, without any further ado, let’s get on with it, shall we?

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Reworking a Sculpture That Doesn’t Satisfy You

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Reworking a sculpture is always a hard decision. What happens when you put time, energy and effort into a piece and you’re not satisfied? I admit that it does happen to me and it probably happens to you too. So what do you do? Do you just leave the piece as it is and decide the piece is a failure or worse yet, that you are a failure? Do you decide to throw it away? Or do you decide to overhaul it? In all truth it can be any of the above and sometimes a variation of the three. Here’s the story about Mr. Mushie d’Room and hopefully it will inspire you to reconsider something in your studio too.

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Understanding the Difference Between an Under-sculpt and an Armature

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If you are new to sculpting, you know that there’s a wide variety of things you still have to learn. Understanding the difference between an under-sculpt and an armature may be at the top of your list, or it may be at the bottom. Regardless, at some point in your sculpting world, you may find that the two of these ideas collide and you find yourself either needing to know the difference or needing to know how to execute to two. Under-sculpts and armatures are often easily confused. Today I hope to clear up some of the confusion and help you better understand the difference between an under-sculpt and an armature.

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Top Sculpting Books in Polymer Clay for Beginners to Intermediates

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Top Sculpting Books in Polymer Clay by KatersAcres

Top Sculpting Books in Polymer Clay (Not Sponsored)

Here’s my top sculpting books in polymer clay and a few brief recommendations on why they are my favorites. There are a lot of sculpting books for polymer clay. Digging through the masses of sculpting books to find your favorites can be tough, especially in such a niche market.

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