DON’T EVER THROW AWAY SCRAP CLAY!!!
Sorry for yelling, but this is a very important matter. 😉 Scrap clay has an infinite amount of uses. I recently played around with a bit I had and I was pleasantly surprised at the results.
There was scrap clay leftover from the faux Jade I blended to make the trinket bowls I created a few months ago.
The technique I used to create the blend is very touchy, so I would not be able to roll it up and reuse it for the same purpose. I was curious about what would happen if I incorporated it into a blend,swirling the pattern. I imagined it would be a nice effect and I might be able to make a few unique cabochons.
I decided to do a test batch and chopped up a bit of the faux jade blend that I created by tinting transparent clay with Sculpey Souflee in Jade. I also chopped a little transparent, and just a tiny bit of pure Jade polymer clay. I wanted the end result to have a lot of depth with visible layers, so it was important that I did not add too much of the opaque color, or I would risk covering what I wanted to show.
I also added a bit of gold leaf, as I thought it would go well with the green…and I just got it, and really wanted to play with it :). I gathered the chopped pieces together and squished them into a ball. I kept rolling it until it was seamless,I rolled it into a log and twisted it a bit to swirl the different clays. I proceeded by shaping it into a rectangle log and using dotting tools as well as the end of a paint brush to press deep holes into the surface. I then formed the clay back together into a solid piece. Kinda like a lazy Mokume Gane 😛
I had a hard time deciding whether to slice the log horizontally,giving me longer strips to piece together for cabochons or vertically, giving me small squares to cover beads with.
I finally decided that I would have the best chance of achieving the layers that I wanted if I cut a fairly large chunk of the log and compressed it. I rolled this section into a ball and then pressed it into my homemade silicone heart mold. I added a layer of solid Jade clay to the back to show through the completely transparent areas and popped it into the oven to see what would come out.
IT ‘S BEAUTIFUL!!! I am so thrilled with the results. I got to sanding it right way so that I could see the true end results. I will be creating another clay log with the rest of the scrap clay and hopefully have equally nice results.
Scrap clay can be used to:
- create the base for a project
- make Natasha beads and Stroppel canes
- create your own clay molds
- make texture sheets
- form clay stamps and more.
So next time you have leftover scrap clay make sure you save it for your own experiments. I would love to see some of your scrap clay magic 🙂
DaturaDeadly 