Starter Kit
Currently I am in between doing assignments, and to break the monotony and stress of it, I decided to do a little 'how to' to start up, to make polymer clay charms :D
So first of all, you need a work place. A good table, good lighting and space. And a cutting mat, so that you don't damage the table, and make sure your work place is clean! Or else your charms will have bits of dust and dirt stuck into them. Of course, imperfections and dust can be sanded away with some sand paper if that happens. Using gloves will eliminate fingerprints in your work, but I hate gloves so I don't use them myself.
Next, you need clay. There are many types you can use, personally, I prefer the Sculpey clay, as it's durable and doesn't break easily and it's great to make charms with. It's also a bit cheaper than the other brands available to me, it comes in many colours, but also in a nice big block of flesh colour. The big block I tend to use more, as I like to paint my own charms (easier to make sure the colours are the same when I make more than one charm, and a wider range of colours).
Of course, you can stick to just the small coloured blocks of Sculpey, but mixing the colours at the right ratio all the time is tricky, and if you burn the charm, the colour changes. But there are some things that just suits coloured clay - like lollipops, sweet rolls, candy canes, marshmallow twists and so on - things that need two or more colours and twisted or rolled together.
Of course you need something to cut the clay:
An X-acto knife, or a hobby knife is great for cutting the clay. You can also use razors, but it's a tad dangerous so be careful with those! Ignore the paint pots and brushes for now, I will mention them later :D The next thing you're going to need, is some tools to work the clay
You can get some clay modelling tools, and although it's not pictured here, toothpicks are awesome to use to do the little details you want in your clay. Ignore the bottle of varnish, this stuff was just really terrible to use as no matter what I did, it dried tacky - later on I will talk about varnishes. Pictured here also are eye pins and that leads onto metal findings!
You will need eye pins, split rings and jump rings. You embed the eye pins into the clay charm before baking, and bake it in, and then you attach a split ring to it, and then using a jump ring, attach that to the split ring, and the mobile cords. Bonus in the picture, some flat back gems that can be used to decorate your charms.
You also need some tools to cut the eye-pins to size, so tools are needed. The wire cutters are used the most, the other cutters and tools I haven't used that often. To bake the charms, you need the metal tray (pictured holding some completed charms) and you can go here to see I bake the charms in a normal oven. Once your charms are baked, you can start painting!
Acrylic paints are best, and at first I used this brand. And it's very good quality, but it's pretty expensive. So I use these more:
These are pretty decent in quality, and although I use these more, I still use Atelier now and then, as they come in shades that are just annoying for me to mix, or the Monte Marte can't achieve. You can go here, to see my tutorial on how I paint the charms, and glaze them too for that matter.
To paint, you need a paint pallet, and some sort of airtight container for mixed paints. The ones I have are 8 little wells connected together and I picked it up at a craft/art shop. They're fantastic, as the paint you have mixed in the paint pallet is not all used up, you can store it into these containers (I absolutely hate wastage, and unused paint getting washed down the drain gets to me) and the added plus is that you don't need to mix the paint again if you are after the same shade :) Another good thing is that it controls how much paint you make, the less you make, the less the waste. So in the end, after using the paint pallet for a few weeks to mix paint (and then getting all the extra paint I have mixed into the wells) I ended up using the paint pallet to hold water to clean my brush ^_^ You can use a mobile to hang your charms to wait for the paint to finish drying, or if you have a piece of styrofoam and skewers, you can skewer the styrofoam, use the eyepin that is attached to the charm to hang it from the skewers to dry (this is also a good way to dry the charms after a glaze).
And now the glaze. Seriously, just go for the glaze that is made for polymer clay - this sculpey glaze dries within 5 to 10 minutes, it's quite thick but can be thinned with water if needed, and it dries smooth and shiny. I adore it, and I use it by pouring a few bottles of it into an air-tight jar, and either dip the charms into it, or painting the glaze on. Since I use the glaze without added water, I find that one coat of glaze is enough. However, if you do thin the glaze, about 4 to 6 thin coats of the glaze will achieve a smooth look. After glazing, you can decorate your charms:
For mine, I use flatback gems. Or, you can also use cane slices:
They're great if you want to decorate some sort of pastry, or just to make things look cute.
I tend to slice alot in one go, and store them in the same containers that the flatback gems came in. It's easier to just grab a slice and decorate, than having to slice a cane every time you make a charm. A way to slide the cane, can be seen here, in this tutorial I made a while ago. If you want to pipe icing, or whipped cream, you can either use silicone with an attached piping tip (which I don't recommend, as although the results are really nice, I dislike the smell, and the toxicity associated with it), you can by things like fuwa whipped cream, which is a paper air-dry clay that can be piped to make fake icing, or use a normal piping bag, some icing tips and modelling paste:
Modelling paste is usually used for paintings to give it dimension, but it is great for fake icing and holds detail well. It can be thinned with water if the consistency is too thick for you. I have yet to try this method, as I have been using the fuwa whipped cream to make my cupcake memo holders - although the durability of it won't be too good on a charm, whereas modelling paste would.
Lastly, you need phone cords, or straps. You can get them off from ebay at pretty good prices, and I got them in many colours to suit my charms. After that, you're pretty much set in making your charms! But, if you plan on making many charms, and make many of one kind of charm, moulds or molds are a good way to go.
The type of material I have used is something called Oyumaru and it is reusable, and just really good for making small moulds for your charms. You can take a look here, for my tutorial on how to use Oyumaru to make moulds. They turn out quite good, and you can see here, how good they are as moulds. However, if you have something quite big you want to make a mould of, Oyumaru would not be as good, as you can see, they come in small sticks, so a better material to use to make a mould would be this:
Basically, you mix the two putty together in equal amounts, press your charm in to make the mould, wait for it to set, and you have a mould! It's good for big things or things with alot of detail, and it's silicone, so it's bendy. I have yet to use this, as I haven't made anything really detailed that I would need to replicate.
And there you have it, the things you would need as a starter kit to make clay things!
^_^
So first of all, you need a work place. A good table, good lighting and space. And a cutting mat, so that you don't damage the table, and make sure your work place is clean! Or else your charms will have bits of dust and dirt stuck into them. Of course, imperfections and dust can be sanded away with some sand paper if that happens. Using gloves will eliminate fingerprints in your work, but I hate gloves so I don't use them myself.
Next, you need clay. There are many types you can use, personally, I prefer the Sculpey clay, as it's durable and doesn't break easily and it's great to make charms with. It's also a bit cheaper than the other brands available to me, it comes in many colours, but also in a nice big block of flesh colour. The big block I tend to use more, as I like to paint my own charms (easier to make sure the colours are the same when I make more than one charm, and a wider range of colours).
Of course, you can stick to just the small coloured blocks of Sculpey, but mixing the colours at the right ratio all the time is tricky, and if you burn the charm, the colour changes. But there are some things that just suits coloured clay - like lollipops, sweet rolls, candy canes, marshmallow twists and so on - things that need two or more colours and twisted or rolled together.
Of course you need something to cut the clay:
An X-acto knife, or a hobby knife is great for cutting the clay. You can also use razors, but it's a tad dangerous so be careful with those! Ignore the paint pots and brushes for now, I will mention them later :D The next thing you're going to need, is some tools to work the clay
You can get some clay modelling tools, and although it's not pictured here, toothpicks are awesome to use to do the little details you want in your clay. Ignore the bottle of varnish, this stuff was just really terrible to use as no matter what I did, it dried tacky - later on I will talk about varnishes. Pictured here also are eye pins and that leads onto metal findings!
You will need eye pins, split rings and jump rings. You embed the eye pins into the clay charm before baking, and bake it in, and then you attach a split ring to it, and then using a jump ring, attach that to the split ring, and the mobile cords. Bonus in the picture, some flat back gems that can be used to decorate your charms.
You also need some tools to cut the eye-pins to size, so tools are needed. The wire cutters are used the most, the other cutters and tools I haven't used that often. To bake the charms, you need the metal tray (pictured holding some completed charms) and you can go here to see I bake the charms in a normal oven. Once your charms are baked, you can start painting!
Acrylic paints are best, and at first I used this brand. And it's very good quality, but it's pretty expensive. So I use these more:
These are pretty decent in quality, and although I use these more, I still use Atelier now and then, as they come in shades that are just annoying for me to mix, or the Monte Marte can't achieve. You can go here, to see my tutorial on how I paint the charms, and glaze them too for that matter.
To paint, you need a paint pallet, and some sort of airtight container for mixed paints. The ones I have are 8 little wells connected together and I picked it up at a craft/art shop. They're fantastic, as the paint you have mixed in the paint pallet is not all used up, you can store it into these containers (I absolutely hate wastage, and unused paint getting washed down the drain gets to me) and the added plus is that you don't need to mix the paint again if you are after the same shade :) Another good thing is that it controls how much paint you make, the less you make, the less the waste. So in the end, after using the paint pallet for a few weeks to mix paint (and then getting all the extra paint I have mixed into the wells) I ended up using the paint pallet to hold water to clean my brush ^_^ You can use a mobile to hang your charms to wait for the paint to finish drying, or if you have a piece of styrofoam and skewers, you can skewer the styrofoam, use the eyepin that is attached to the charm to hang it from the skewers to dry (this is also a good way to dry the charms after a glaze).
And now the glaze. Seriously, just go for the glaze that is made for polymer clay - this sculpey glaze dries within 5 to 10 minutes, it's quite thick but can be thinned with water if needed, and it dries smooth and shiny. I adore it, and I use it by pouring a few bottles of it into an air-tight jar, and either dip the charms into it, or painting the glaze on. Since I use the glaze without added water, I find that one coat of glaze is enough. However, if you do thin the glaze, about 4 to 6 thin coats of the glaze will achieve a smooth look. After glazing, you can decorate your charms:
For mine, I use flatback gems. Or, you can also use cane slices:
They're great if you want to decorate some sort of pastry, or just to make things look cute.
I tend to slice alot in one go, and store them in the same containers that the flatback gems came in. It's easier to just grab a slice and decorate, than having to slice a cane every time you make a charm. A way to slide the cane, can be seen here, in this tutorial I made a while ago. If you want to pipe icing, or whipped cream, you can either use silicone with an attached piping tip (which I don't recommend, as although the results are really nice, I dislike the smell, and the toxicity associated with it), you can by things like fuwa whipped cream, which is a paper air-dry clay that can be piped to make fake icing, or use a normal piping bag, some icing tips and modelling paste:
Modelling paste is usually used for paintings to give it dimension, but it is great for fake icing and holds detail well. It can be thinned with water if the consistency is too thick for you. I have yet to try this method, as I have been using the fuwa whipped cream to make my cupcake memo holders - although the durability of it won't be too good on a charm, whereas modelling paste would.
Lastly, you need phone cords, or straps. You can get them off from ebay at pretty good prices, and I got them in many colours to suit my charms. After that, you're pretty much set in making your charms! But, if you plan on making many charms, and make many of one kind of charm, moulds or molds are a good way to go.
The type of material I have used is something called Oyumaru and it is reusable, and just really good for making small moulds for your charms. You can take a look here, for my tutorial on how to use Oyumaru to make moulds. They turn out quite good, and you can see here, how good they are as moulds. However, if you have something quite big you want to make a mould of, Oyumaru would not be as good, as you can see, they come in small sticks, so a better material to use to make a mould would be this:
Basically, you mix the two putty together in equal amounts, press your charm in to make the mould, wait for it to set, and you have a mould! It's good for big things or things with alot of detail, and it's silicone, so it's bendy. I have yet to use this, as I haven't made anything really detailed that I would need to replicate.
And there you have it, the things you would need as a starter kit to make clay things!
^_^