A little bit of history
Who was the genius that came up with the idea of polymer clay?
Well if you want a little bit of useless information, keep reading 😉
According to the internet, ‘one of the earliest forms of polymer clays was invented by Robert Bakelund as he searched for a synthetic form of shellac’. ‘ Polymer clays were first developed to address wartime shortages of materials used in doll making’. ‘FIMO polymer clay was first made popular by Maureen “Fifi” Kruse, daughter of well-known German doll designer Kathe Kruse in the early 1940s. “FiMo” which stood for a shortened version of “Fifi Mosaic” or “Fifi Modelermasse”’. As you can see, it is something that has been around for a long time. Obviously it has changed and improved. It also took me a long time to discover, mainly because I was occupied by other crafts.
Anyway, back to the main topic. I always wanted to try some kind of sculpting and was considering pottery lessons. I thought about trying it and see how fun it could be to make a simple bowl. It was just a case of finding time to attend those lessons. I’ve also considered trying air drying clay, something I could do at home. It was only recently that I took interest in polymer clay after I have seen all the beautiful things that can be created.
I’ve watched plenty of tutorials on YouTube before I decided on my shopping list. I have found one project, fairly easy to make yet the effect turned out very pretty.
You don’t need many tools to start with polymer clay. It will all depend if you just want to make a few simple things or the goal is to stick with it for a little bit longer.
I had some crafting tools already at home so my shopping list wasn’t too long but over time it will definitely grow.
What tools you will need
Tools I already had around the house:
– marble chopping board – perfect working surface
– plastic rolling pin
– cookie cutters
– small drills
Shopping list:
– polymer clay
– tissue blade (makes cutting and picking clay up so much easier)
– pasta machine (turns out it’s a must for easy colour blending)
Those are just very basic things you need to start with and just add more over time, depending on your goals. I’ve since bought more small cookie cutters, UV resin to add a nice glossy finish and a couple of textures to experiment with different designs.
Let the fun begin
Now we’re ready to start. Very simple, blending three colors, to begin with.
I’ve cut three equal pieces
Now all the fun has begun. Using pasta machine I kept blending it until it looked as I wanted. If you don’t have a pasta machine you can use a rolling pin. The idea is to keep rolling it in the same direction, fold it in half and roll it again and just repeating the process.
Colors begin to blend
Once I was happy how the colors have blended I rolled it and then wrapped in a layer of white clay.
Roll it as tight as you can
After wrapping in white clay, I kept rolling it thinner and thinner into a long snake
Now ‘snake’ was ready to be cut into the same length pieces and then put together like a little puzzle.
That is the color arrangement I was happy with. As you can see some of the rolls have holes in them. Most likely that happened when I first rolled the blended clay and it wasn’t tight enough. It’s not really a problem as it will all be squeezed together.
To be continued… 🙂
