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There's a tool for every job, but one of the greatest things about polymer clay is that you can use just about anything as a tool. There's no need to pay expensive craft store prices to create professional-looking products with polymer clay. Take a look around your home and see what you can come up with. Does it cut? Can you press it into the clay to make a design? You'll be surprised at what you'll find once you start looking. Even the lowly little toothpick can be an invaluable tool when working with small clay items.
When browsing through your house or visiting a yard sale, look for things like wood carving tools, leather punch tools, and crochet needles. Old dental tools, scissors, razor blades, and any type of pliers and cutters are even more useful than expensive 'official' clay cutters. Toothpicks can be used to etch designs into clay or smooth out rough edges on hard-to-reach places that are too small for fingers. Old candles, vases, and pots can be decorated and made new with clay. Fancy wine glasses, perhaps from a set that is no longer complete, make beautiful decorative pieces with clay vines and roses wrapped around the stem.
Buttons make quite a statement on a shirt, but they can also make a wonderful impression in your clay. Take a look around at some old buttons you have. Are the patterns on them unique? Press them into your clay to see what kind of designs you can come up with. Soon you'll have a little container full of buttons just for your clay use! Keep an eye out for broken jewelry, old drawer pulls, beads, cooking utensils (pastry cutters and whisks make wonderful designs) and other cast-off items that can be used with your clay to make your projects more interesting.
Once you start gathering your tools, you'll need somewhere to put them. Don't fall into the specialized tool-bin trap that you'll see in craft stores; something as simple as a fishing lure box will work just as well. For example, a 3-section fishing lure box filled with floral foam in one section will allow you to stick your tools into the foam where they're both easy to see and pull out. No digging through the drawers of a craft box. One of the sections can be used for buttons, drawer pulls and the like; another can be used for special clay cutters that don't stand up on their own.
To keep your clay from going stale once it's been opened, ordinary ziplock sandwich baggies work wonders. You can even use a hole-punch on the outside edge of the seam and organize the different colors in a 3-ring binder. For less room or smaller amounts of clay, look online for small ziplock jewelry bags. You can usually find these in 3" x 4" sizes at wonderful prices in bulk quantities, rather than paying outrageous prices for much smaller amounts at craft stores. If you find yourself making many small items in advance, such as clay buttons or hearts, you can make these in bulk, bake them all at once, and store them in baggies until they're ready to be used.
One of the quickest ways to flatten your clay is by running it through a pasta machine. In craft stores, these can run as much as fifty dollars. Browse through online cooking stores or your local thrift store; you'll find that you can buy a new or nearly-new pasta machine anywhere from five to twenty-five dollars. As an alternative to a pasta machine, there are many things you can use to flatten out your clay:
-rolling pin
-drinking glass
-brayer
-wooden dowel
-bic pen
-anything smooth and round.
Also very important is the surface you'll be working on. You don't need to pay expensive craft store prices for special clay cutting surfaces. However, your wooden kitchen table is not something that you want to press and cut clay on. The wood will leave an impression in the clay, and there will be traces of clay left behind that will get into other pieces, as well as into your food. For the best of mobility, pick up a piece of tile at a hardware store (the bigger, the better) or use an old kitchen trivet. The clay doesn't stick to the tile unless you want it to and it's very easy to clean off simply by scraping your razor blade over it. You also won't leave telltale cutting marks in a piece of tile.
As you get finished with a project you'll need someplace to put it. Let's face it, firing up your oven for one small 2" figurine can get to be hard on the utility bill. Dedicate one glass baking dish to your clay projects and put your projects into it as they're finished. This can be easily put up out of the way until the next time you're ready to work. Then, when the dish is full, bake everything all at once, saving time and electricity.
Craft stores are now selling small clay ovens for exorbitant prices. Look carefully; these are nothing more than regular toaster ovens and can be bought much cheaper at major retail stores or even found at yard sales. You need to be careful when using a toaster oven to bake your clay. Projects that are more than a few inches high can easily get burnt in a toaster oven, being so close to the heating elements. Try to pick one that has a good height and lower the rack in it as far as you can. There's nothing more heartbreaking than spending a few hours on a really pretty piece of claywork only to have it come out smoking and black from the toaster oven. The fumes can also be harmful.
The most important thing to remember about working with polymer clay is that all you really need is a piece of clay, your own two hands, and an oven to bake it in. It's inexpensive, easy to work with, and can fill your home with many beautiful handmade items. Anything else is just food for the clay play addiction.
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