Polymer clay?

[Deleted]

I never knew about this sort of craft until yesterday. Our local library is offering free lessons on exploring polymer clay. They are providing free tools and the techniques so each of us can create a "retro cane" figurine at the end. I signed up for the first class, will do the others if I like the first one, then proceeded to YT since I had never heard of this craft. Well it looks so cool to me! If what I have surmised is correct, it's basically manipulating clay disks into a pole/pipe like contraption, which then spits out a "cane" (cylinder) of the clay disks stacked on each other. Then you run them through a pipe like thing again with a cap shaped like a tiny triangle/circle/square and it spits out the previous cylinder into spaghetti like strings which you then squish together and it forms this end product that looks so absolutely cool and different than what you started with. Picture shows starting product on the top, finished on the bottom. So then you take this final form (on the bottom) which is called the "retro cane" if I'm right and you can manipulate it into bracelets and pendants and earrings and such. Seriously never knew such a thing existed, now my mind is really amazed by it all!

Edit: in my excitement I forgot why I made this thread. Have any of you done this, do you do this now? Would love to hear about people that do/have dabbled in polymer clay type art/projects!

[Deleted]

Doesn't look like anyone dabbles in this art. But just in case someone is curious in the future...

I took my free class last night. It took us 3 hours with an instructor who was teaching it for the first time and stumbled along the way, but this was our end product.



This guy is about the size of my hand. We spent 2.5 hours manipulating the clay and putting it on the snake body, then 1/2 an hour to bake it in a toaster oven at 250 degrees. 300 degrees or more and it will burn and start emitting fumes. This clay once baked is in essence plastic. It's the same plastic used in the PVC piping for our water lines, so based on your toxicity tolerance, that's the info on that. Overall, it seems a very cheap, yet rewarding craft to me. The polymer clays are only a few dollars. The equipment needed was literally a small rod/pipe thing which is around $10, a pasta maker (to roll out the disks of clay evenly, but could be done with a rolling pin), and the oven to bake it. People that are advanced in the craft make things from bowls to jewelry to hair accessories. Clay can be put on anything that can withstand being baked at 250 degrees for 30 minutes. So literally anything from a foot massager to a toy rattle can be customized in a super cool way imo!

[mulish]

Wow, Rachel, that is marvelous . So what is going to be your next project?

[Deleted]

mulish, Actually my next project I hope is a lifestyle change. I am not a very organized person but have still been able to be on top of all the "responsible, adult" things that me as a mom, wife, grown apple woman needs to be. But recently I have gotten into sort of a frenzy with organizing. It is the first time in my life I have been hit with this bug, so slowly little by little from the smallest things like using a magnetic knife block to store knives and a little key holder to hold keys, to big things like a toy organizer to put away all of my son's toys and a bookshelf to organize the zillion books we have here, I am slowly finding that I am gaining sanity (that I didn't even know was once lost!) with each new step I take. So this has been my project of late, how about you?