Category: Hints, Tips, & Tricks

Hints, tips, tricks, and valuable information for working with polymer clay.

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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Finding Your Routine is Essential to the Creative Process

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Finding Your Routine to Enhance Your Creativity by KatersAcres

Finding your routine is an essential part of being an artist. It is not something that many of us even think about. A routine can help us settle in. Routine can help us to automatically perceive things about our environment. Today, over on the Sculpey blog I am discussing finding your routine. Why? Because find your routine is one way that will help you in your creative process.

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How to Spring Clean Your Studio Easily & Efficiently

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How to Spring Clean Your Studio by KatersAcres

Spring clean your studio easily, quickly, and efficiently. These tried and true tips that will take you from danger zone to comfort zone in less than 30 minutes. The arrival of spring not only makes me want to clay my days away, but it also makes me want to clean! It’s not secret that I can’t clean in a mess. I’ve written many times about how I LOVE a very clean studio. Unlike many other artists, I crave a clean and tidy workspace. [It’s okay, you can laugh.] I do know that I’m not the only artist that is like this. I have written articles on this blog before about how you can clean up your studio, but today I’m talking about the BIG clean up (almost like a purge) that you really should do every spring.

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Selecting a New Project Considerations on the Sculpey Blog

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Polymer Clay Tip: What To Consider When Selecting a New Project

Selecting a new project can often be a daunting task. Today I’m going to help you to conquer it! As many of you know I’m a freelance designer and part of the Design Squad for Polyform. I’ve been part of their Design Squad since 2015. It’s hard to believe that it’s been that long! This is my month to write for the blog and I’m inviting YOU to come over and join us!

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Acrylic Paints for Polymer Clay

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Acrylic Paints for Polymer Clay | My favorite acrylics to use with polymer clay - CLICK to read the article now

Acrylics paints for polymer clay? Absolutely! Acrylic paints have been used safely for years with polymer clay. I have written about the use of acrylics with polymer several times here on the site. (See the linked articles at the end of this post.) Today I will share with you my four most used acrylic paints. You may enjoy these acrylic paints for polymer clay sculpting, jewelry making, or many other polymer clay disciplines too.

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Overlooked Polymer Clay Tips You Might Not Know

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Polymer Clay Tips from KatersAcres

When it comes to polymer clay, one of the most frequently asked questions when I teach at workshops, give classes, and receive emails is: “can you give me some polymer clay tips?” It’s no secret that everyone wants tips when starting out on a new hobby. Here’s a few overlooked polymer clay tips to help you in your polymer clay journey.

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Five Tips for Sculpting with White Polymer Clay

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Tips for Sculpting with White Polymer Clay by KatersAcres

There can be nothing more frustrating than sculpting with white polymer clay. Before you know it dust, lint, fibers, rouge cat hair, glitter (than you haven’t used in a month), and specks of other colors of clay find there way embedded into your pristine white polymer clay. There’s no need to hyperventilate, panic, throw out the clay, scream, cry, or even give up completely. Here’s a few tips that might help you along your journey to whiter, sparklier, and all around crisper white sculpted designs.

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Fingerprints in Polymer Clay: Two Tips to Banish Them!

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Q&A with KatersAcres: Fingerprints & Sculpting | The Two Solutions You Need to Know VIDEO

There’s only two things you need to know when dealing with fingerprints in polymer clay when you are learning how to sculpt. These two simple solutions are the two things each of my students who venture to my studio for lessons learn first. If you can remember #1 and master #2, fingerprints in polymer clay will be a thing of the past for you.

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Polymer Clay Q & A – Episode 3: Supplies, Creatures, Engagement, & Warming Clay

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Polymer Clay Q & A with Katie of KatersAcres - Episode 3 | Supplies, Creature Feature, Engagement, & Warming Clay

Polymer Clay Supplies, Creature Feature, Engagement & Warming of Clay

Polymer Clay Q & A – Episode 3

Welcome back to another episode of “Q & A” with KatersAcres. I hope to do many more of these in the future, but in order to do them, you need to post your questions in the comments below. Your questions will be answered in a future video. I am trying to keep each video to about 10-12 minutes so that I might answer these questions as thoroughly as possible. Below you will see a timed step-out of the video if you would like to watch just a certain portion of the video.

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