Polymer clay charms??

Question

I want to get into jewelry making, and I found this girl who makes things from "polymer clay, acrylic and glaze".

Does anyone know much about this? How to do it? Where to find the materials? Here's a picture:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=12631840

Does she just paint the face on?

Thanks :)

Answer 1

One thing you can guarantee about Etsy, the crafts are always stuff you can find in your local craft shop.

The polymer clay comes in little bricks, and it's not expensive, in my opinion. They also have paints and other tools, along with books that tell you step by step how to make anything you want. You can use colored clay and then paint on the smaller details.

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Answer 2

IMO that is a little expensive for one charm but to answer your question without trrying to sell you anything -like other posts-

polymer clay is a modeling-sculpting clay that needs to be baked to completly harden.  You can make almost anything you want from it. It comes in many colors and you can knead 2 colors together to make others..

most craft stores sell it and you can find many,many online sites.  and yes the face is painted on those charms.

Answer 3

The charms you saw, plus other things at that site, are made from polymer clay (there are various brands and lines of polymer clay --like Premo, FimoClassic, FimoSoft, Cernit, Kato Polyclay, etc).  Many of these charms have also been given a glossy finish with an acrylic glaze/sealer/finish (there are various types/brands of those that can be used too) though polymer clays don't *require* a sealer to be waterproof the way that air-dry clays will.  

Polymer clays are also different from air-dry clays in that they never dry out in the air, but must be heat cured in a low-temp home oven to harden.

Generally, polymer clays can be purchased from craft, hobby, and art supply stores (though those places often won't have *all* the brands, or perhaps all the colors available in a brand), and can also be purchased by mail order (most of those suppliers are also online).

Check out this SUPPLIES page at my polymer clay "encyclopedia" website for more details on mail order places, and local places if you don't live in the U.S.... mail order places usually have some of the more comon tools and materials used with polymer clay too, though many can also just be found around the house:

http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/supply...

Polymer clays can be used in many different ways btw ... for example it can be used to "sculpt" or shape little representations of things (living things like heads, whole figures, animals, flowers, trees, etc.... or non-living items like miniature foods, or other objects like clothing and accessories for figures, or miniature furniture, etc., etc.).  Polymer clay can also be manipulated to create all kinds of patterns and special effects, can be made into all kinds of jewelry, can be made to look like many other things (metal, wood, pearls, jade, turquoise, ivory, etc.), can be used to make boxes and bowls, and just so much more!

In this case, miniature food items were made (and a "top loop" connector was also added).  

Their simple faces were most probably painted on (generally with two coats of an acrylic paint, though other colorants can be used on polymer clay--no "enamel" paints though).  

The faces *could* have been made in other ways too... for example, each facial part could have been molded from tiny bits of clay then applied to the blank clay face while it's raw, or thin slices from clay "canes" could have been applied in the same way (e.g., from an "eye cane"), or the entire face could have been made from a multi-cane cane (which would be composed from two eye canes, a nose cane, a mouth cane, and perhaps 2 colored-cheeks canes, filled in all around with skin-colored clay).   Some face canes can be quite complex and realistic, and some are very simple.

If you want loads of lessons and examples re making miniature foods (and lots of other minis) with polymer clay, giving gloss to the surface when desired, adding connector pieces and making jewelry with polymer clay, painting on top of clay, and more on sculpting with clay such as making heads and faces, avoiding fingerprints, etc.... check out especially the following pages at my site from this "Table of Contents" page:

http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/conten...

Miniatures > Foods

Houses, Structures > Candies and More Sweets

Finishes

Pendants > Top Loops

Beads

Jewelry

Paints > Painting on Top of Clay... and Acrylics

Sculpting-Gen. > Fingerprints ... and Websites

Sculpting-Body + Tools

Heads

Kids-Beginners

........NOTE.......

On the left side of each page at the site, there's an alphabetical navigation bar.   So to go to any particular page, just click on its name from inside that nav. bar.

HTH, and have fun!

Diane B.

P.S.  There are pages at the site on "the basics" of polymer clay too that you might want to check out, like Baking, Glues, Characteristics of diifferent clay brands, etc.

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