I had trouble with too-soft clay, today.
The clay started out a bit on the soft side, right out of the package, but the warmer weather is making it even worse. I'm resorting to leaching, which I hardly ever do. I suppose I could try switching to a firmer brand of clay, but I'm stubborn and prefer to buy my clay at sale prices. . . I may have to start refrigerating projects between "steps".
I'm playing around with the faux leather technique, combining instructions from Carol Blackburn's beautiful bead book and Irene Semanchuk Dean's lovely faux surfaces book-- then putting a little of my own twist on things. Nothing anywhere near done, yet. I'm having fun with it, but it'd be nicer if the clay wasn't a goopy mess. :oP Well, I've been leaching away, so I hope to see some improvement.
5 comments:
I have a great trick for leaching polymer clay super fast. If you put it in a folded sheet of office paper and then run it through your pasta machine at tighter and tighter settings, the extra plasticizer leaches out lickety split! I talk a little about leaching clay and other tips on my blog.
We are suffering the same problem here in Israel. FIMO clay is sticky like hot bubblegum!
Thanks for the tip, Cindy. :o) I'll give that a try, next time I'm leaching clay.
Shay, I'm sorry to hear that! It makes it harder to enjoy working with the clay. :o(
Have you tried the new Studio clay? I found it on sale and the colors were irresistible. But I was disappointed that it was so soft.
I've always liked the harder clays. And being lazy, the less steps --like leaching, mixing colors, refrigerating, etc.-- the happier I am. :D
No, I never have seen it, locally. (Of course, I also haven't been looking for it in a long time.)
I enjoy mixing colors, sometimes, but the leaching and refrigerating can get annoying-- especially when I'm eager to work on something. (g)
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