Category: Hints, Tips, & Tricks

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

Mica Powder Highlight in Sculpting with Polymer Clay

Posted on by — Leave a comment
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.

Continue reading Mica Powder Highlight in Sculpting with Polymer Clay

How to Use Our Mica Powders

Posted on by — Leave a comment
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.

Continue reading How to Use Our Mica Powders

Top Five Mixing Clay Colors

Posted on by — Leave a comment
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.

Continue reading Top Five Mixing Clay Colors

Polymer Clay Tips: Productivity in Your Studio

Posted on by — 4 Comments
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?

Continue reading Polymer Clay Tips: Productivity in Your Studio

Reworking a Sculpture That Doesn’t Satisfy You

Posted on by — Leave a comment

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.

Continue reading Reworking a Sculpture That Doesn’t Satisfy You

Understanding the Difference Between an Under-sculpt and an Armature

Posted on by — 2 Comments

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.

Continue reading Understanding the Difference Between an Under-sculpt and an Armature

Top Sculpting Books in Polymer Clay for Beginners to Intermediates

Posted on by — 4 Comments
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.

Continue reading Top Sculpting Books in Polymer Clay for Beginners to Intermediates

Finding Your Routine is Essential to the Creative Process

Posted on by — 2 Comments
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.

Continue reading Finding Your Routine is Essential to the Creative Process

How to Spring Clean Your Studio Easily & Efficiently

Posted on by — Leave a comment
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.

Continue reading How to Spring Clean Your Studio Easily & Efficiently

Selecting a New Project Considerations on the Sculpey Blog

Posted on by — Leave a comment
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!

Continue reading Selecting a New Project Considerations on the Sculpey Blog

Acrylic Paints for Polymer Clay

Posted on by — 3 Comments
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.

Continue reading Acrylic Paints for Polymer Clay

Overlooked Polymer Clay Tips You Might Not Know

Posted on by — Leave a comment
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.

Continue reading Overlooked Polymer Clay Tips You Might Not Know