Rearranging my craft room

Rearranging my craft room

 

Right from when we moved here and up until now, my craft room has been divided into 2 'sections' - on the left I had all my craft/polymer clay and art supplies and on the right I had my setup of nail art stuff. That has changed. I'm not done organizing everything, and I haven't quite figured out where I want every single item and 'section' to go, BUT, I have moved all my nail supplies away from the desk. I still do my nails, and I'm trying to get back into posting nail tutorials on my YouTube at least once a week, but craft supplies just take up so much more room than nail polish - and the more Space you have to spread your stuff on, the more inviting it feels to sit down and start a new project - do you know that feeling?

I'm still debating with myself whether I want the other desk to be focusing on art stuff; Color pencils, pencils, watercolors etc. or if I should move my doll making supplies to that area; Doll clay, wire for armatures, tools, tin foil and my mohair.. I usually end up sitting in our livingroom when making Dolls and my boyfriend isn't all that excited about me leaving all my tools in the sofa - can't blame him, haha ;)

One of the main reasons why I don't sit at my 'clay.crafting desk' when sculpting Dolls is because of the mohair - which seems like a lame excuse now that I think about it... but when you're wigging a doll, mohair sometimes gets everywhere, and it's frustrating to find tons of small pieces of hair when you're trying to make hairless miniature food. I figured it'd be easier having it seperated.. maybe it won't make much of a difference.. I don't know.

 

If you haven't kept an eye on my youtube channel since my last post you've already missed 6 new tutorials! :) If you'd like to see how to make any of these polymer clay pieces just click the link and it'll take you to my channel: SugarCharmShop

 

There's a basic orange tutorial, a cute Pikachu (Pokemon) pendant, another way of making an eyeball cane when making glass like doll eyes. There's also a tutorial for crepes, a quick tutorial for a watermelon cane and a snowflake pendant/ornament :) Enjoy!

And please remember to share with your friends if you'd like to see more.

Review and comparison; Mold maker

Review and comparison; Mold maker

 

Time for another quick review/comparison - this time for mold putty. I have 3 different brands, and I'll let you know what I think, pros/cons etc. Hope this will be helpful to some of you.

 

Sculpey mold maker:

It comes in a 'clay form' - 2 Blocks where you have to take however much you need, Push an item into it, bake and you have a mold. It's very soft and quite 'sticky'.

I got this in the beginning of 2011. I tried it out right away and made a couple of molds,. Haven't used it since, and threw out the molds. It claims to make flexible molds.. They really aren't that flexible, and it'll crack if you try to bend them too much. Besides that, you'll also need to apply some type of starch or 'mold release' medium, otherwise the clay will just stick to the mold, exactly as if you'd made the mold from scrap clay.

The only 'pro' I can think of is, that it can act as a clay softener as well. I really wouldn't recommend this for mold making.

 

I got mine from clayaround.com

Amazing mold putty:

This is what I've been using the most - it's a 2-part silicone putty that you mix equal parts of. You then have a couple of minutes to shape it and create your mold. it's easy to Work with and takes approx. 20 minutes to set, but I recommend leaving it for a bit longer, just to make sure it's completely hardened and not sticky anymore.

I've repurchased this product 3 times, I think, and I really like it. The molds are super flexible and pretty durable. The 'texture'/finish of the finished mold is slightly 'rough'. Hard to explain.. It's not really that noticable when working with polymer clay, but if you're using it for liquid clay or resin, you may not get that pretty smooth surface you want.

 

I get this from metalclay.co.uk

Siligum:

My most recent purchase when it comes to mold makers. It works the same way as the amazing mold putty - you mix 2 parts, create the mold and let it set.

The consistency is more on the sticky side and it takes approx. 10 minutes to set. I don't think it's as durable as the amazing mold putty - it can crack if you bend the molds too much and it's easier to cut through (so you can harm the molds when cutting off excess clay). However, it has a smoother texture when cured and seems to Work better for projects with liquid clay or resin.

Last thing I feel like mentioning about this is, and I don't know if  this is just me, but I feel like the unbaked clay releases from the mold as easily as with the AMP? Nothing a bit of starch can't fix, but could cause a problem for certain projects.

 

Got this from metalclay.co.uk as well

 

What do I recommend?

well,. Anything but the sculpey mold maker really. I will probably continue to have both the AMP and siligum on hand, so that I can choose the mold putty I want to use for each clay project. It's a matter of preference and needs.

Experiment; Over-baking polymer clay?

Experiment: Over-baking your polymer clay?

Ever since I bought that 'efcolor enamel' mini stove you've heard me talking about a few times, I've been wanting to make this experiment; What will happen if you over-bake your clay?...

You see, the efcolor stove gets really hot and if you bake any clay in there, it's very close to the surface (hottest place). I usually just use it for baking a master before making a mold, making clay plates etc.. But I noticed that the pieces that have been baked in there were pretty much unbreakable (extremely flexible). I'm not going to take a guess on the exact science of this ;) But I thought that the same effect might be possible to achieve with a regular oven, if you were to bake the clay for longer.

 

On the packages of clay I have, they tell you a temperature and that they clay should be baked for 15-30 minutes. Obviously I've always thought that the 30 minute mark would be somewhere around the 'max' for how long you should bake your creations. Apparently it's not - I was working on a new doll and was going to use the oven anyways, so I took a piece of the clay mix I used for the doll, rolled it into a snake and put it in the oven for an hour... Yes! an hour! haha.

I didn't cover it with tin foil or anything else, I just put it on the baking tray and into the oven. Besides the fact that it had a slightly different smell when I opened the oven (not any major difference) it looked fine. The color hadn't changed, and... it was extremely flexeble - now, I haven't tried wiggling it back and forth for multiple minutes, but I've bent the piece 5-10 times creating a narrow u-shape (from that straight snake) and it didn't show any sign of cracking! it just went slowly back to being a straight snake of baked clay!

 

I've tried with some more pieces of clay and even though some of them became slightly darker in color (probably depends on the brand), none of them got burnt. I'll still recommend to cover it up with tin foil, just in case - and it's a good idea to make some test pieces if you're thinking of trying this; Not all ovens are the same when it comes to heating, baking and cooking, and it'd be a shame to ruin a clay creation that you've spent time making, but I just wanted to make this quick post about the result of my experiment :)

I'll definitely be doing some more testing and figure out the minimum time frame for getting the clay to be that strong.