Hints, tips, tricks, and valuable information for working with polymer clay.
If you make a lot of blends with clay, I’m sure there’s been at least one time or two when your blend has gotten too wide and isn’t long enough. If this happens to you, not to worry, you are not alone.
Continue reading Tip Tuesday: Make a Wedge for Your Pasta Machine
Making a cake topper is a lot of fun. I recently made a cake topper for my one of my girlfriend’s parents. They were celebrating a magnificent accomplishment; 25 years working as coaches for the local rifle team. So, my friend issued me a challenge to have me design and make a custom cake topper in their honor for their backyard summer celebration. I thought I would take a moment today to show you the me making a cake topper (in photos of course) so you could see how it was built step by step, piece by piece. If you would like to see more “in process” photos of my work on the blog, let me know!
If you love polymer clay tutorials (and who doesn’t) and you have a good number of them, if you print each and every one, over time, storing them becomes a real problem! Here’s what I’ve done to tackle that problem. I hope you enjoy these tutorial storage ideas, feel free to share yours in the comments below.
It’s no secret that for crafters and hobbyists, one of the best places to find tutorials and projects on the internet is Pinterest. While Pinterest can be a wonderful resource, keep in mind that it is just that, a resource. I will attempt to weigh-in on some of the more pressing etiquette concerns facing both users and the people who create material for Pinterest.
One of the questions that I receive more often than not is what kind of polymer clay tools that I use in my studio. The honest truth is, I have so many that I honestly don’t know where to start … so you will get several different “polymer clay tools” posts so that you can learn what you might like, based on what I like. The truth is that what tool I use depends on what I’m working on as to what tool I use. This being said, I will give you a brief synopsis of the tools that I use everyday or almost every day and let you know what I think of them. So … let’s see what polymer clay tools I use, shall we? Continue reading Polymer Clay Tools You Might Want to Get to Know
Polymer Clay Storage Options
I have received so many questions from you, my readers, asking me about polymer clay storage options. Previously I had written about some polymer clay storage options, that focused on floss boxes; many of you have asked for more details, pros/cons, where and what to buy. There is a wide variety of polymer clay storage options available to the crafter, professional, or home studio clay artist. The reality is that absolutely everyone stores their clay differently. Everyone has a system that works for them. Just because a system works well for one clayer does not mean that it will work well for another clayer. Let’s see what options are available to the home studio clayer. Continue reading Polymer Clay Storage Options
For the past few weeks I have offered you mini-tutorials on Tuesdays. This week I’m going to share some polymer clay tips with you! If fact, today’s polymer clay tip’s one that I use every single day in my studio. Undoubtedly you’ve also struggled with this: it’s how to get those clay “smudges” off your blended sheets.
It does not matter how much I have cleaned my pasta machine, inevitably I end up with smears, marks, and other “random” colors of clay from previous projects on my slab of clay. Yuck. I hate it when this happens … sadly it happens to me every time I clay. Now, the point could be argued that I have no idea what I am doing. This could be true, however, I would argue that one.
Here’s the more likely scenario … It just happens! And I’m sure it’s happened to you. It happens to me often because I don’t let any clay go to waste. I even use that old, “unusable” hard clay! This being said … my clay slabs that I roll through my pasta machine, often have “clay muck” (this is my term for unwanted clay “bits” that get into my clay and make me go “yuck”). Those hard little tiny bits that get “stuck” in my rollers seem to “break loose” right when I don’t want to see them. And I’ll be honest, it happens a lot.
When that happens there’s no need to fear. Here’s a few quick & easy tips to prevent this from happening.
Here’s some help for those times that the clay still ends up getting onto your light colored blend (of course)….
OH! And in case you are wondering, the sheet pictured at left is the same sheet in the “clay muck” photos, just fully conditioned Premo polymer clay with all that “clay muck” removed…ready to be made into a Parker!
Sculpting Blessings,
Finding the right brand of polymer clay can be a challenge for anyone, but especially new clayers. As I began the journey of the Friesen Project, I didn’t realize how many new clayers would be joining us. This week I have been bombarded by requests asking what kind of polymer clay I use in my studio and how to find a brand of polymer clay that will work for you. So, without further ado, let’s find a brand of polymer clay that will work for you, your hands, and your climate.
Continue reading How to Find a Brand of Polymer Clay that Works for You
All you have to do is search the internet for help on how to bake polymer clay. You will see a lot of wrong and incorrect instructions on how to do this. But let’s be honest: every artist does this differently and every artist has their own system that works for them. What works for me, may not work for you. And the biggest thing with polymer clay … the baking times are different for almost every brand of clay and oven. Today I’m going to give you a few tips on how to bake polymer clay items at home in your own toaster oven.
Continue reading How to Properly Bake Polymer Clay
Sometimes your polymer clay pieces need an extra something, just a touch of something special to bring out the details that you have embedded into the clay. When you have carved or engraved your clay, you will often want to accent those pieces after they have finished baking. Many artists call this adding a patina to polymer clay. Other artists call it antiquing an item. For today’s mini-tutorial, we’re going to call it an “antique finish.” There are many ways to do this, but this is the way that I find the easiest…
For anyone who’s a self taught polymer clay artist, you’ve already made some critical mistakes in claying. You tried a shortcut (that didn’t work) or tried a way to do something that ended up ruining your piece. It’s okay, don’t worry, we’ve all been there. This month we are going “back to basics” in creating with polymer clay. So for today’s mini tutorial we’re going to go over the proper way to embed a bead into polymer clay.
There is a lot of information on the internet about how to condition polymer clay. There are even people saying that there’s no need to condition clay if it is soft (gasp)! 2013 is going to bring lots of talk of polymer clay and all things sculpting to Kater’s Acres blog, the biggest of which is The Friesen Project. Because of this, all during the month of January, I am going to talk about some of the basics of polymer clay. With so much incorrect information on the web, it’s really hard to know what it correct.
Continue reading How to Properly Condition Your Polymer Clay
It’s no secret that I love a good DIY project. What’s also no secret is that if I can make it myself better, more simply, and more cost-effective, I’ll likely do it. So for my polymer clay tip today, I have decided to share my recipe for my super-easy hand scrub to keep your hands from becoming clay stained and a super quick washing solution between colors. This recipe using things you likely have already in your kitchen, as well as a recycled baby jar (thank heavens for my friends who keep me supplied with them).
Have you ever finished a project and washed your hands with soap and water and gone “ew!” because there was yucky clay scum left behind? Well, I have! And it is because of this that I decided to make my own salt scrub. Please note that this is a super simple version of a fancier version (that calls for scented oils, specialty moisturizing oils, etc). Some versions call for sugar instead of salt, but my studio is downstairs and sugar tends to attract ants, especially when I leave the lid off the jar, which is often … therefore I use salt, which doesn’t attract bugs and in emergencies can be used on slugs … although I’ve never had any of those in my basement … moving on!
For most of my readers, you have already mentally checked these things off in your head because you have them at your house. Please know that you can use any kind of oil [even vegetable oil or coconut oil]; I prefer EVOO because it leaves my hands nice and softie-soft! You can use any kind of dishwashing or hand soap. I prefer Dawn as my choice for dishwashing soap for its awesome cleaning power, but you can use any soap. The reason that there are no added “scents” to my recipe is that my dish soap is already scented … I mean why should I ruin that awesome Thai Dragon Fruit smell that Dawn has given me? PS: If you haven’t tried this scent yet, you should … it’s my favorite.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Thai Dragon Fruit Scent has been discontinued as of 2018.
Here’s the easy part. This recipe is for a SMALL jar (approximately 2.5 oz), you will need to tailor this recipe to fit your jar.
All you need to do is stir it all together inside your jar! And then wah-lah! You have an awesome homemade, ultra-cheap, DIY salt scrub that you can use to get all those clay bits off of your hands once and for all.
You want this mixture to be semi-dry. The salt should stick together, but it should be loose, but still able to be packed. If there is oil or soap “floating” in spots in your mixture, keep stirring. If there is still oil or soap in there, add more salt until it is all absorbed. Feel free to keep a spoon next to your mixture, just so that between washings of your hands, you can stir your mix so the oil & soap don’t settle to the bottom. I also tend to “shake” my bottle before I use it. This also helps to keep it nicely mixed.
Sculpting Blessings,
Sometimes polymer clay inspiration runs out and your creative streak comes to a grinding halt. And personally, I hate it when that happens! I go along for weeks with thousands of ideas swimming around my head and then all of a sudden BAM all those ideas are just … gone! Where did they go? Chances are my inspiration got lost along the road of life and needs a little “revival” in order to come back to me. Delving into different craft mediums can be helpful to find your inspiration once again and art journaling is one of the ways you can find that inspiration again!
(Photo at right is linked to artists profile page here on Pinterest)
Continue reading Find Polymer Clay Inspiration Through Art Journaling
One of my favorite things about working with polymer clay is that you can reuse everything … or should I say give your old things a new purpose, in other words: repurposed items you’ve already used! What kind of items can you reuse: everything. Well…okay, maybe not everything … but you certainly can reuse a LOT of things that you probably haven’t thought of, or may have thought of but haven’t taken the time to do so.
You can reuse or repurpose items like your shipping label backs, pickle jars, peanut butter jars, Carmex jars, cat food containers, and anything that is glass, metal, or heavy plastic. You probably already know this, but your question now becomes … but what do I do with them? Here’s a few examples & projects that you can do with things you already have in your house.
Continue reading Did You Know that You Can Reuse Anything When It Comes to Claying?
I absolutely love meeting new polymer clay artists. The first thing they say when I ask if they have made a pen yet is: “You can do that?” I giggle to myself and tell them, yes, you can do that. It’s a simple, easy, & basic project. Even for beginners. This is not the first time that I have written about polymer clay pens, feel free to click the link to see some awesome talent. Tomorrow I am releasing a NEW tutorial on YouTube, just for you wonderful folks on how to cover a polymer clay pen.
Continue reading The Magic of a Bic Ball Point Pen