Polymer Clay On A Budget

Long time, no blog! After being on a bit of a hiatus and moving from the big bad city back to my beloved home town, I am ready to get this blog back on the road, and write about more interesting things. A big thank-you to all the people who left interesting comments on my past entries - it's good to know that I could possibly help you all in your claying endeavors!

Something that I get a lot is, "Isn't polymer clay expensive?". Well, if you live in Canada like I do, yes - it is! Small 2oz bars of Polymer Clay can cost as much as $5.99, depending on where you shop. And after breaking the bank how many times, I have learned to be a bit more frugal when it comes to my clay-buying binges.

Both Canada and the U.S have Michaels (which is a large craftstore chain), but if you don't live in the city or get to one of their stores during a good polymer clay sale, you aren't going to get much of a bargain. My closest Michaels store happens to be about 1 1/2 hours away, so it isn't going to do me much good, at all, by the time I spend the money to get there and back again.

So what is the alternative? Well, consider how you are reading this very blog - the good old internet, of course! There are plenty of sites offering advice on getting the best Polymer Clay deals, but only if you live in the States. So what if you live in Canada? Well - you're in luck. With our Loonie being so strong right now, Americans aren't the only ones getting great deals!

Here are two fantastic online stores for buying your polymer clay and other great supplies:


Polymer Clay Express

This online store is my absolute favourite. It is actually run by the folks at a Brick and Mortar store in Maryland, USA, called the ArtWay Store. Being as Maryland is extremely close to the Canadian/U.S Border, shipping times are extremely reasonable and I almost always have my clay within a week. They carry all popular brands of clay such as Fimo, FimoSoft, Premo, Sculpey III, Studio, Kato, Cernit, etc, as well as several Liquid Clays, Air Dry Clays, and all sorts of other Art Supplies and Clay Supplies.

Sculpey III is only $1.50 per 2oz pack and Fimo, FimoSoft, Kato, and Premo are only $1.75 per 2oz pack. Shipping is inexpensive if you only buy enough to fit flat in an envelope - which is usually around $6.00 - larger and heavier shipments can cost more. The good thing about the Shopping Cart is that if you input your Zip/Postal Code, you can get an estimate of how much shipping will be AS you shop. And Canadian Residents, do not fret... just because it is in American dollars, you are still getting a great deal. The Canadian Dollar and U.S Dollar are so close right now that there is only a few cents difference on every dollar.

Polymer Clay Express website: http://polymerclayexpress.com/


The Clay Store

This online store has an amazing collection of all sorts of Polymer Clay, and the prices are roughly the same as Polymer Clay Express. They are located in Winter Springs, Florida, U.S.A, and Canadian Residents can expect to wait a little bit longer for their shipments - usually about 2 weeks or so. Shipping prices are also very reasonable, and you can always keep track of how much it will cost with their handy-dandy shipping estimator in your Shopping Cart.

A few of the perks for this website is their great deals on large bars of clay. If you know you are going to be getting into Polymer Clay, and you have a particular brand in mind, their "Discount and Wholesale" section is a great way to get several blocks of clay all together for a very good price. The Clay Store also carries the "Makin's Professional" brand which is always good for their Clay Extruders - seriously, once you use one of those Clay Extruders, you'll never be able to go back to the standard Sculpey brand Clay Extruder in which you need to push and push and push on the plug until your face goes blue. More information on Extruders in my next article!

The Clay Store website: http://theclaystore.com/

Battle of the Brands

Many of us start with one brand of polymer clay to start, and as we embrace the clays pros, we often eventually get used to the cons as well and work our way around them. But what if you knew which brand was right for you before you even touched the clay? Each polymer clay brand has many characteristics that make it distinct from other brands, so if you are looking for a specific trait in your clay, you might want to read on. Who knows, you might find something better then what you are working with right now.

I have personally tried every popular brand of polymer clay, and there are about five of them. There are also the polymer clays that require painting afterwards, like Studio by Sculpey as well as Super Sculpey... but I will not get into those.

The four most easily attainable clays are Fimo Classic, Fimo Soft, Sculpey III, Premo, and Kato Polyclay. Each have their own distinct characteristics, pros, cons, and baking times. These are my findings in point form:

Fimo Classic
Baking: 230°F / 110°C for 30 mins (per 1/4" thickness) Do not exceed 265°F / 130°C
· The firmest of the clays. Although it has gotten softer after many new formulations over the years. It has suffered many problems in recent years due to unsatisfied sculptors who favoured the old formula over the new ones.
· Difficult to work with, especially for beginners.
· Needs quite a bit of conditioning, preferably by using a mallet or by using a pasta machine.
· Tends to crumble over time, especially if poorly stored.
· Comes in a wide range of wonderful colours, including pastels.
· Great for caning and firm enough to sculpt easily.
· Certain colours can darken in the oven.
· Very hard after baking.

Fimo Soft
Baking: 230°F / 110°C for 30 mins (per 1/4" thickness) Do not exceed 265°F / 130°C
· Extremely easy to work with.
· Good for beginners.
· Softer than Fimo Classic but not as soft as Sculpey III.
· Does not need any conditioning, and can be worked with right out of the package.
· Can get sticky or mushy when over worked.
· Can be britle after baking, but not as britle as Sculpey III.
· Darker colours can bleed into lighter colours.
· Comes in many different colours as well as special effects like stones, textures, metallics, glow in the dark, translucent, etc.

Sculpey III
Baking: 275°F / 130°C for 15 mins (per 1/4" thickness)
· Extremely easy to work with.
· Great for beginners.
· The softest clay to work with.
· Does not need any conditioning, and can be worked with right out of the package.
· Can get sticky or mushy when over worked.
· Can be very britle after baking - the weakest of the clays.
· Colours tend to stay the same before and after baking.
· Translucent Sculpey tends to brown while baking.
· White Sculpey is very bright.
· One of the best colour palettes of clay there is. There is metallics, stone, textures, pearls, translucent, glow in the dark, pastels, fluorescents, etc.
· Not very good for caning, but some people HAVE accomplished it.

Premo! Sculpey
Baking: 275°F / 130°C for 30 mins (per 1/4" thickness)
· My choice as the best clay to work with. Highly recomended!
· Easy to work with.
· Softer than Fimo Classic or Kato, but not as soft as Fimo Soft or Sculpey III.
· Needs minimal conditioning.
· Certain colours can be a little soft, but most are nice and firm.
· One of the strongest clays after baking.
· Colours tend to stay the same before and after baking.
· "Frost" Premo is one of the best translucent clays.
· Has an "artist palette" when it comes to colours. Such as Cadmium Red, Zinc Yellow, etc. Artists find this fantastic, but if you aren't very aquainted with the artists palette, it can be a little difficult to mix colours.
· Not as many "fun colours" compared to other clays.
· It can be very temperature sensative, so it can get mushy on hot days and really hard to work with in the Winter.
· A great "all purpose" clay, and a total happy medium between all other clays.

Kato Polyclay
Baking: 300°F / 150°C for 10 mins (per 1/4" thickness)
· A very firm clay, but not as firm as Fimo Classic.
· Not recommended for beginners.
· Needs conditioning - preferably with a pasta machine.
· Can become crumbly if poorly packaged.
· Does not stay conditioned (workable) for long.
· Baked Kato Polyclay has a natural sheen.
· Surface seems to reject waterbased glazes like Varathane.
· Great for caning.
· Not as many "fun colours" compared to other clays.
· "Translucent" Kato Polyclay is very transparent.
· Strong after baking.
· Has a very strong smell during baking. Almost like the smell of "new doll".
· Very difficult to sand.
· All colours tend to be the same firmness.


In Conclusion...

My personal favourite clay to work with is Premo. It really is the happy medium of polymer clays, although it isn't exclusively what I work with. I do not work with Fimo Soft or Kato much, but I love Sculpey III for it's awesome colour palette, and I ocassionally use Fimo Classic because it is so firm. If I need a lot of one colour, say... a nice bright red, I tend to combine one each block of the Sculpey III "Red Hot Red" with Fimo Classic "Carmine" and Premo "Cadmium Red"... the result is a fabulous bright hue of red with the firmness of something between Premo and Fimo Classic. It's lovely.

I really dig the "Frost" Premo as opposed to the "Translucent" Premo. The difference is that a bit of bleach has been added to "Frost" which results in much less browning compared to "Translucent".

Mixing brands can be done no problem, all you have to do is adjust the baking time. For example, if you are mixing Fimo Classic and Sculpey, you should go with the lower temperature for Fimo Classic, and possibly bake it a little longer. Just experiment, and use your best judgement!

Comment me with your findings to share your thoughts with the viewers! Who knows, we might all learn something. Happy claying!

What Is Polymer Clay?

Many polymer clay artists tend to roll their eyes when questioned what polymer clay is by innocent bystanders. If you really think about it, most people will tend to think it is just another variety of clay that comes from the ground that needs to be fired in a kiln like pottery is. It is a very common assumption to think this is so, but it isn't the case. Can you really blame your customers for wanting to know?

Polymer clay actually doesn't come from the ground at all! In fact, it is completely man-made. While earth clays tend to come from the ground and are completely waterbased, polymer clay is actually created from solid and liquid polymers - which is basically plastic! It is called "clay" only because it can be modeled, worked, and sculpted like clay can.

The base of polymer clay tends to be PVC (or Polyvinyl Chloride) and a liquid plasticizer is also added to make the clay workable. While Earth clay needs to be fired at a very high temperature inside of a kiln, this temperature would be much too hot for clay and it would surely burn profusely. Polymer Clay is baked in a household oven or toaster oven at a lower temperature for a short period of time - usually around 275 degrees farhenheit for 20 to 30 minutes. During this time, the plasticizers harden which result in a rock-hard mound of clay. Unlike sculpting mediums like some Earth Clays and Playdough, Polymer Clay will not air-dry - even if it is left out for days.

Although Polymer Clay has been popular for quite some time now, it has it's roots back in the 60's where it was discovered as a molding compound by accident. Originally it was being used for a different purpose, but when it was concluded that it was not good for it's original purpose, it was put aside. Someone happened to stumble on this mysterious material and began sculpting a figure, baked it, and behold - they had found a sculpting medium! By 1967, this clay was being sold as "Sculpey" on a small scale in the United States.

The most common brands of polymer clay tend to be Sculpey, Fimo, Kato, Premo, and Cernit. Each brand has it's own characteristics and it's own colours - every colour of the rainbow, pastel hues, fluorescent, translucent, sparkled, metallic, pearlescent, textures, and even glow-in-the-dark! Colours can also be tinted with pastel shavings, inks, oil paints, powdered pigments and other types of inclusions to get the look you want.

Liquid Clay is sold by most major Polymer Clay companies. The two most commonly found Liquid Clays would be Translucent Liquid Sculpey (also known as TLS) or Fimo Decorating Gel which is sold in a smaller quantity. Both Liquid Clays have their own qualities, but the Fimo brand is known for being the most translucent after being cured in the oven.

So what exactly can you do with Polymer Clay? Well. Pretty much anything you can do with any other clay! The only thing I wouldn't really recommend is using it to create utensils or dishes that you intend to eat from, or using it to create plugs for your large gauged ear piercings. Although Polymer Clay is labeled as Non-Toxic, it is always good to take precautionary measures. The surface of Polymer Clay is rather pourous after baking, so it may store bacteria that you cannot see.

I hope that this article has informed you a bit better about what polymer clay is, and I also hope you will stay tuned for my next article where I will be discussing the differences between various Polymer Clay brands.