How to Work with Polymer Clay

Today’s lesson is all about working with polymer clay. I am going to show you some of the tips and the techniques that you need to get started. First of all you need to choose polymer clay. It comes in a variety of different ways. You can see that it comes in a multi-pack, the one that is in blocks. But it also comes in individual packages. There is a few safety tips that you need to know as well. You need to protect your work surface and I have used wax paper. I also worked directly on a ceramic tile. This is good because you can keep your projects right on the ceramic tile and then put them right into the oven. You also want to be careful with those tools because they can get really, really sharp. A couple of things that you will need—keep some wet wipes around. This is good to wipe your hands between colors so that you do not mix colors together and it is also good to clean up after you finished working with the clay. You go into have some tools as well and you can see that we have a variety of tools to choose form. Look around the house, use things like toothpicks or maybe an old toothbrush. Those are great to texture of your characters. The tools that we have here are made specifically for kids and some of them put patterns in the clay. We have some cookie cutters here. Now you can use cookie cutters from the kitchen as well but make sure that once you use any tool from the kitchen that you never used it again for food. I have some toothpicks here, those are good, we are going to use those to poke some holes in some eyes and then just some other tools. We have a roller here that is going to help you condition the clay. Now the clay also comes in kits and this is a really good choice because you can see in this kit it comes with everything that you need. It even comes with a protector work surface and then there are some push molds too that will help you make your project. So it is a really good choice for beginners. Now look at this big silver machine. Do not let it intimidate you—this is called the pasta machine. And later on as you get better, you want to have one around because this will help you condition the clay mix colors and even make it flat easier, so you can put clothes on your characters. Now, let us talk a little about conditioning because that is very important. If you think about cookies, when you are making cookies with your parents, you need all those ingredients mixed up. The clay actually has ingredients that needs to be mixed up as well in that way your project is nice and durable and your arms and legs do not fall off after baking. So, we are going to take a block of clay. I have already taken the packaging off. What you want to do is you want to slice down, you can roll this in your hands to make it warm because warmer clay is softer but this is so soft out of the package and you just going to roll it with your brayer and you fold it over and you keep doing this until it gets soft and pliable. Now, the next thing if you want to continue conditioning the clay, we will make colors. So you can take different colors of clay, twist them together like I have here, makes swirls, marbleized clay and then you can create really funny characters like this little lizard that I have here. After you finished with your projects, you want to make sure to store it properly. You can use a plastic container or you can use blocked baggies. One thing you want to make sure is that you keep it away from the heat. And if you do that it will last a long, long time. Now in order to make your characters hard, you will need an oven. So have an adult help you with this. The instructions for baking are on the package of clay but typically you are going to bake it at 265 degrees for 30 minutes to an hour depending on how big your project is. Wait until it cools because a warm clay is also a brittle clay and you will have arms and legs fall out of your characters, just a good rule of thumb. So join me later in the program as I come back to show you a really fun project.