Love to carry souvenirs and polymer clay jewelry? Many children like to make all kinds of crafts, but the purchased material is not too budget. Read how to make polymer clay at home. The components are all available, the technology is simple. And most importantly, you will know exactly what is included in the mass for sculpting, with which your baby is engaged.
Possible options
There are a lot of recipes for the preparation of polymer clay, or rather its analogue in properties. All of them can be divided into the following categories:
- On corn starch.
- Based on potato starch.
- With petroleum jelly and without it.
- With heating in the microwave.
- Heated in a water bath.
- With the cooking process on the stove.
- The cold way.
As you can see, the options differ in manufacturing technology, the materials used and their percentage.
Simple ingredients: glue and corn starch
Obtained according to this recipe, the mass will almost completely correspond in its properties to the purchased polymer clay. The only drawback of this composition is that the work done from it will decrease by about 30% after drying by weight and size, respectively. Pay attention to this minus and note that the products need to be performed a little larger than you would like to see the finished version. Craft from this composition should dry for at least a day.
If you do not know how to make polymer clay at home, start with this recipe, since the necessary components are cheap and affordable. You will need the following:
- 1 cup cornstarch.
- 3/4 cup of construction PVA (can be bought at the store) or children's (clay consistency is softer with it).
- 2 tbsp. l mineral oil (motor) or baby.
- 1 tbsp. l lemon juice.
- Heat-resistant container for mixing with non-stick coating.
- Shovel or stirring spoon.
- Stand for hot container.
- Gloves.
How to make corn starch mass
The sequence of actions is as follows:
- Mix the right amount of corn starch and glue in a heat-resistant container at room temperature (until heated). The proportions of the ingredients can be increased or decreased as a percentage.
- Mix the resulting composition well until smooth.
- Add prepared mineral oil and lemon juice.
- Stir until smooth.
- Place the container on the stove and heat, stirring constantly, until a puree-like consistency is obtained.
- Remove the container to the stand.
- It’s better to add some more mineral oil.
- Put the mass on the table (preferably covered with something heat-resistant). You can use a tray or chopping board.
- While the mass is still hot, put on gloves and knead it properly to a uniform consistency, like a pizza dough.
Now you know how to make polymer clay at home based on simple ingredients. It is worth noting that the resulting mass only repeats the properties of polymer clay, but is a more natural product, and not a composition prepared on the basis of plastics, as in the case of a purchased option.
Microwave Glycerin Recipe
The first method examined taught you how to make polymer clay at home without petroleum jelly, however, adding this ingredient softens the texture, making the composition more plastic. When dried, an article made of such a material does not exactly crack during shrinkage.The modeling mass is quite sticky, not only due to glycerol, but also to a larger proportion of glue, so it’s better to cook it a day before the start of the creative process, and better - in a few days. The following components will be required:
- 1 cup of glue.
- 1 cup cornstarch.
- 1 tbsp. l petroleum jelly.
- 2 tbsp. l lemon juice.
- 1 tbsp. l non-greasy and silicone-free hand cream.
- The tools are the same as in the previous method.
How to make polymer clay in the microwave
The steps are as follows:
- In a heat-resistant bowl, thoroughly mix glue, corn starch and petroleum jelly until smooth.
- Add lemon juice and mix well.
- Put the container in the microwave with maximum power for 30 seconds.
- Stir the mass.
- Hold for another 30 seconds in the same mode.
- Remove the bowl from the oven.
- Lubricate the work surface with a hand cream (board, tray, table), on which you will knead the mass.
- Remove the dried crust formed in the oven from the mass and discard.
- Take the plastic component and lay it on the work surface.
- Vigorously and thoroughly knead the mass like a dough. It should become ductile and elastic.
- Make a sausage out of the mass and lay on the cloth. It must absorb excess moisture.
- Completely cooled mass can be removed for storage.
How to make polymer clay at home: a recipe without cooking
Many technologies are similar and the sequence of steps, too. However, the above methods require heating. This is not always convenient, since it is associated with the need to observe safety precautions. Now you will learn how to make polymer clay at home without a microwave and stove. This recipe can be mastered even with children. Not only the molding process, but also the manufacture of mass for crafts is easy to turn into an exciting activity for the child. The ingredients are:
- Corn Starch - 200 g.
- PVA - 200 g.
- 1 tbsp. l liquid paraffin.
- 2 tbsp. l Vaseline (can be replaced with cream).
- 1 tbsp. l perfume (optional).
The manufacturing process consists in the fact that starch intervenes slowly in small portions to a mixture of liquid-oil ingredients to obtain a pleasant to the touch and suitable for sculpting mass. Divide it into several pieces and give each one its own shade. You can mix tempera and watercolor. If during work the mass begins to dry out and crumble, it is enough to add another cream and mix the composition thoroughly with your hands until a homogeneous consistency is obtained.
Do you have potato starch? Consider how to make polymer clay at home
Photos of the stages of work clearly demonstrate that creating mass for sculpting at home is a simple matter. The problem may be that in your arsenal there are no suitable ingredients and devices. You can completely do without a microwave oven using methods with heating on a conventional gas stove, but not everyone has corn starch. If you are faced with such a problem, and you are thinking about how to make polymer clay at home without starch, as an alternative, take a recipe with potato starch. It is cheap and affordable.
To work, prepare the following:
- 100 g of PVA glue.
- 100 g of potato starch.
- 1 teaspoon of petroleum jelly or hand cream.
- 2 tsp baby oil.
- A spatula or kneading spoon.
- Two heat-resistant containers of different sizes for a water bath.
- Flat surface of the table.
The sequence of manufacture of the mass based on potato starch
Polymer clay according to this recipe is prepared as follows:
- Combine all the ingredients in a smaller bowl.
- Pour an arbitrary amount of water into a large tank so that the smaller one put into this one turns out to be in the water, but stands at the bottom rather than swimming.
- Thoroughly mix the mass and do not overheat it.
- When the lumps begin to form, remove from the stove and put on a greased surface with the cream and continue to knead (if the mass is not overheated, then the hands should not be hot).
- When the clay surface becomes smooth and wrinkles do not form, wrap the mass in a film and leave it for 12 hours.
After that, you can start sculpting or remove the clay for storage.
Colored polymer clay
You have learned how to make polymer clay at home in the microwave and without it. You may already have chosen the right recipe, but don’t know how to make a ton of color. There are two ways:
- Colorize the finished craft.
- Add pigment during mass preparation.
After drying, the finished product can be covered with acrylic paint, tempera, and even white areas should be primed, since the material itself will appear slightly transparent, that is, a saturated white shade may not work.
As for the second method of staining, the main thing here is not to overdo it. During the preparation process, acrylic, aniline or food colors can be added to the mass, but there should not be many of them. Otherwise, the structure of the material and its properties may change.
Storage conditions
Now you know how to make polymer clay at home. Recipes, of course, differ from each other both in the constituent ingredients and in the manufacturing technology. However, it is worth remembering that in all cases, in order to get high-quality material for crafts, you need to not only prepare it correctly, but also store it until the moment you decide to mold something from it.
The mass obtained in any way must be kept in the refrigerator, always in a sealed container. It can be a plastic bag, a plastic container. The prepared clay is laid out in a suitable container. If the mass has not cooled completely yet, leave a small hole between the lid and the bottom of the container or do not tie the bag completely, just remember to close it when the mass has cooled. Otherwise, the material will dry before you decide to use it.
Now you know how to make polymer clay at home in many ways. Choose the appropriate method based on the required ingredients or ease of manufacture.
