Are you ready to dive into the world of polymer clay? Our specially curated starter kit (only available in the United States due to exorbitant international shipping fees), designed for both beginners and experienced crafters, includes everything you need to bring your creative visions to life. Let's explore what's inside this comprehensive kit and how each item can be used to enhance your crafting experience. We'll also share some valuable tips and tricks to help you get the most out of your new tools and materials.
Work Surface
6-inch Square Ceramic Tile:
This smooth and reliable surface is essential for your creative endeavors, especially when working with polymer clay. The nonporous nature of the ceramic tile ensures that your clay sticks well to the surface, making it easy to roll, cut, and shape your creations to the desired thickness. By using a smooth surface like ceramic or glass, you allow the clay to adhere properly, preventing it from sticking to your cutters and other tools. This results in cleaner cuts and more precise work, ultimately enhancing the quality of your final pieces. Avoid working on surfaces like plastic, porous stones such as granite, or silicone, as these materials won't provide the necessary adhesion. If you purchase additional ceramic tiles to work on, make sure they are polished, completely smooth, and shiny—not matte or textured.
Ceramic tiles can go directly into the oven, which is perfect for baking your clay creations. Many people choose to bake on a tile, allowing them to bake their pieces without lifting the clay at all. However, baking on the tile may result in uneven shiny spots or bubbles on the back of the clay. These can be removed with sanding or acetone. To avoid this, simply lift the clay shape with a tissue blade, place parchment paper on the ceramic tile, place your clay shapes on the parchment paper, and then put the tile in the oven.
Working on glass is another fantastic alternative. Many clay artists choose to work on picture frame glass or glass crafting mats. Remember that these types of glass cannot go in the oven.
Crafting Tools
A Variety of The Clay Impress Cutters:
We've included a range of great starter cutters, featuring simple designs like teardrops, dangle sets, and tiny cutters, perfect for making studs and small flowers. These cutters are ideal for beginners who are learning the basics of using cutters. The simple design means they have minimal debossing details, making them super easy to use. The more detail in the cutter, the more challenging it can be to work with. To ensure the best results and avoid clay sticking to the cutters, use the techniques found in this helpful article: How to Keep Your Clay from Sticking to Your Polymer Clay Cutters
Graduated Set of Metal Circle Cutters:
This versatile set includes 12 cutters ranging from 3.5 mm to 30 mm, allowing for precise cutting of various sizes. You'll find countless reasons to use circles in your projects! The smallest circles are perfect for creating tiny flower petals and leaves, adding delicate details to your designs. Circles around 1-2 cm in size are ideal for making studs. The larger circle cutters are great for making dangles, allowing you to craft statement pieces. These cutters are also excellent for portioning clay when following color recipes, ensuring consistency in your creations.
Acrylic Roller:
An essential tool for rolling out smooth clay slabs, the acrylic roller is key to achieving even thickness and professional results in your projects. When it comes to cleaning your acrylic roller, it's important to avoid using alcohol or acetone, as these can damage the material. Instead, opt for gentler vinegar-based household cleaners like white vinegar mixed with water or commercial vinegar-based cleaners like Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day or Seventh Generation. These options will help maintain the quality of your roller without causing harm.
Pin Vise Hand Drilling Tool:
This tool is essential for precision drilling, especially for creating clean jump ring holes, ensuring your pieces are ready for assembly. Many makers choose to drill the holes for their jump rings after baking the clay. This technique helps to ensure the hole remains clean and doesn't deform. Poking holes before curing can cause the clay to "pillow" around the hole, leading to deformation.
Finding the right drill bit to use will depend on the size of your jump rings. It's important to drill a hole slightly larger than your jump ring to allow it to swing freely, but not too large as it could compromise the aesthetic of your piece. In the drill bit set, the 4th and 5th smallest bits (1.5 mm and 1.75 mm) are typically ideal for most jump rings.
Ball Tools:
These versatile tools are perfect for crafting intricate details and flower petals, adding texture and dimension to your polymer clay creations. Graduated ball tools are not only ideal for shaping delicate petals but also for creating smooth, rounded indentations in your clay. These indentations can be used for details in slabs, faux hammered metal patterns, or other small decorative elements. They're great for embossing textures and creating subtle contours, giving your pieces a more lifelike appearance.
Many clay artists use ball tools in conjunction with a foam pad, which provides a soft surface to gently shape and curl flower petals. For those interested in exploring this technique, you can purchase a suitable foam pad on Amazon.
Silicone Tools:
These versatile tools are great for smoothing clay and spreading UV resin or liquid clay, ensuring a polished and professional finish. Makers use these all the time for a wide range of tasks, from refining details in my clay pieces to applying and blending liquid clay. Their flexibility and precision make them indispensable in achieving smooth surfaces and clean edges, whether you're working on small intricate designs or larger projects.
Pin Tool:
Fine-tune your creations with precision using this indispensable tool, ideal for intricate detailing and adjustments. The Pin Tool is great for picking up small pieces of clay and transferring them with ease, making it perfect for adding delicate details to slabs, flowers, and leaves. This multifunctional tool is something you'll find yourself grabbing all the time, whether you're working on detailed designs or simply need to make small adjustments.
Tissue Blade:
The Tissue Blade is essential for moving and transferring clay without distortion, ensuring your clay shapes stay the right shape when working with them or transporting them. It's a vital tool for any polymer clay artist, allowing for precise slicing and shaping. For tips on how to lift clay shapes without distorting them, check out this article and video from The Blue Bottle Tree: How to Lift Polymer Clay from Your Work Surface - The Blue Bottle Tree This tutorial offers valuable techniques to help you achieve professional results with your clay creations.
Mermaid Tail Craft Knife with Replacement Blades:
A cute and functional addition to your toolbox, the Mermaid Tail Craft Knife is perfect for detailed cutting. This versatile tool is great for precisely trimming excess clay, carving intricate designs, and shaping fine details. It's also ideal for cutting out delicate patterns or designs from clay slabs, ensuring sharp and clean edges. The craft knife is an indispensable tool for any polymer clay artist looking to add intricate details to their work.
Paint Brushes:
These brushes are essential for cleaning up your clay pieces and brushing away cornstarch. After cutting out your shapes and lifting them from your cutting surface, you might find little bits of clay stuck to the edges. This clay, cut away from the shapes but often remaining stuck to the cutting surface when the excess clay is pulled away, may attach to your clay shapes when you remove them with a tissue blade. Use the brushes to gently brush away these pieces of clay, ensuring a clean finish.
Please note that this brushing method only works if your cutters are sharp enough to cut all the way through the clay. If you notice the edges of your shapes are ragged, it might indicate that the cutters didn't cut completely through the clay slab due to blunt cutters or not enough pressure being applied when pressing down. In such cases, you'll need to trim the excess clay with a blade or sand it away after baking.
The soft fan brush is ideal for brushing away cornstarch after cutting out your shapes or for brushing away excess mica powders, helping to maintain a neat and professional look.
Three Thickness Guides (1.5mm, 2.5mm, 3.5mm):
Each guide offers a different thickness, allowing for consistent and even clay slabs. These acrylic depth guides are perfect for achieving a specific thickness of clay.
Each thickness is designed for a specific purpose:
- 1.5 mm Guides: Ideal for making thin items such as flower petals and leaves or small slab decorations. These guides are also essential when using the Earring Post Embedder Kit.
- 2.5 mm Guides: Perfect for use with our debossing cutters. Our debossing cutters are designed for use on clay that is 2.5 to 3 mm thick.
- 3.5 mm Guides: Specifically tailored for use with texture sheets. Without guides, textures can appear uneven.
To use these guides, position them on either side of your clay slab. These guides act as barriers during the rolling process, ensuring that the clay does not roll thinner than the chosen thickness. As you roll the clay or texture sheet, the roller will come into contact with the depth guides, preventing the clay from being rolled any thinner. This ensures a consistent thickness throughout your clay slab.
The Clay Impress Silk Screen - Funky Foliage:
Add intricate patterns and designs to your clay pieces with ease using The Funky Foliage Silk Screen. Silk screens allow you to transfer detailed and contrasting patterns onto your polymer clay, creating beautiful and professional-looking designs. Whether you're aiming for a bold statement or subtle detailing, this tool helps you achieve stunning results effortlessly. For a comprehensive guide on how to use silk screens with polymer clay, check out this silk screen tutorial: Using and Cleaning Silk Screens
The Clay Impress Texture Sheet - Wildflowers:
Create beautiful textures and imprints with this Wildflowers Texture Sheet, adding depth and dimension to your polymer clay creations. These texture sheets create an embossed pattern that you can leave as-is for a subtle, natural look or enhance with paint or mica powders to highlight the raised patterns. You can also use these sheets to create a stunning faux ceramic effect. For a comprehensive guide on using textures with polymer clay, check out this tutorial: How To Use Polymer Clay Texture Sheets
The Clay Impress Water-Soluble Transfer Sheets - Floral Medley #1:
Effortlessly transfer detailed multicolored designs onto your clay pieces with Water-Soluble Transfer Sheets. These sheets allow you to add intricate and vibrant patterns to your creations, enhancing their visual appeal. For a step-by-step guide on how to use these transfer sheets, check out the tutorial here: Using Water-Soluble Transfer Sheets for Polymer Clay: Step-by-Step Guide
Comprehensive Clay Colors:
The kit includes six 2 oz blocks of high-quality Sculpey Premo clays in Fuchsia, Zinc Yellow, Cobalt Blue, White (2), and Pearl. This primary selection provides all the hues required to effortlessly craft an endless spectrum of colors. With these vibrant and versatile colors, you can create a wide range of shades and tones, perfect for any project. We’ve also included Premo Pearl, so you can add a shimmer to any color you create!
Sculpey Premo Color Recipes:
Explore 40 carefully curated color recipes using the provided clays to create a full spectrum of stunning shades. Whether you're looking to mix soft pastels or bold, rich tones, these recipes offer a straightforward way to achieve your desired colors. Elevate your color-mixing experience with the included parts cutter, designed to simplify the recipe process by helping you measure precise amounts of each color.
Finishing Touches
The Clay Impress 5 mm Earring Embedder Tool Kit:
Embedding earring posts in solid clay is by far the most secure and skin-safe option for attaching posts to clay earrings. Our patent-pending tool was specially designed to simplify this process, providing you with a tool that easily attaches posts and creates a professional and durable finish. The kit includes the 5 mm size, matching the 5 mm earring posts provided in the kit. We also offer four other sizes to match the majority of earring posts available today. For more details on attaching earring posts, check out our article on attaching earring posts, which also includes a tutorial on how to use the Post Embedder with a video: Adding Posts to Polymer Clay Earrings
The Earring Embedder Tool is available for earring posts ranging from 3 to 8 mm from our website: Earring Post Embedder Kit .
Jump Rings (150 Total in Various Sizes and Colors):
This kit includes 25 stainless steel jump rings in three sizes (4, 6, and 8mm) and two colors (silver and gold), perfect for assembling your jewelry pieces. Makers tend to use a range of jump ring sizes for different designs. We've provided three different sizes in the kit, but you can purchase even more sizes if you find that you need a wider range for your projects.
Earring Findings:
The kit includes 20 silver and 20 gold stainless steel findings, featuring front-facing earring hooks, 5 mm ball post earrings, and 5 mm flat pad earring posts. These findings are enough to make 60 pairs of earrings! We've chosen to include stainless steel findings because they are tarnish-resistant and low in nickel, making them hypoallergenic for most wearers. For more information, check out our article on hypoallergenic and nickel-free metals: What is Hypoallergenic Jewlery?
Tip: When purchasing earring findings, it's best to buy hooks, posts, and hoops with loops that face the front. This way, you'll only need one jump ring to add your clay charms and dangles. If you buy findings with loops that face the sides, you'll need to add an additional jump ring to make your clay face forwards. Alternatively, hooks with very large sideways-facing loops can be used without any jump rings at all!
Two Pairs of Pliers:
These are essential for easy earring assembly and other crafting needs, helping you to open and close jump rings, attach findings, and more with precision.
Super Glue:
Super glue is a helpful tool for holding clay pieces in place while working with them or adding more clay. It can be used to secure earring posts in place while embedding them with solid clay or to hold cured clay shapes together while adding more clay for reinforcement. For example, in our 3D gingerbread house assembly tutorial, we use super glue to hold the walls of the house together before adding clay to the joints: Assembling The 3D Gingerbread House
It's important to understand that super glue is not sufficient for long-term bonding of clay to metal or clay to clay. It should only be used temporarily if you plan to reinforce the bond with additional clay. Note that baking super glue can cause it to break down and release fumes. We use a minimal amount of super glue when working with clay, so the amount of fumes is typically very small, but ensure the area is well-ventilated. For a more secure bond that won't break down and produce fumes at clay curing temperatures, consider using heat-tolerant super glue such as this one on Amazon
Additional Tools and Tips
In addition to the items included in your starter kit, there are a few other tools and materials that can greatly enhance your polymer clay crafting experience. Whether you're looking to achieve more precise results, expand your creative options, or streamline your workflow, these additional essentials can be invaluable.
Oven Thermometer:
To achieve optimal and durable results in your polymer clay creations, precision in the curing process is crucial. Most oven's built-in thermometers aren't terribly accurate. We highly recommend using a separate accurate oven thermometer to monitor the temperature. Digital thermometers with probes, in particular, offer greater accuracy compared to in-oven thermometers. Here's an example of a great digital thermometer: ThermoPro on Amazon. When you place the probe right next to your clay, you'll be able to watch for temperature fluctuations wile your clay is curing.
Cookie Sheets:
We recommend baking your clay on a ceramic tile (on parchment paper or directly on the tile) on a cookie sheet. If your oven is prone to temperate spikes, you may want a second cookie sheet that you can invert and place on top of the other. You'll end up with a clam shell configuration around your tile. This will create a 360° heat shield for your clay to help prevent discoloration and burning.
Corn Starch:
A light dusting of corn starch on your cutters and/or your clay will keep the clay from sticking to your cutters. While water works well for simpler designs, corn starch becomes indispensable for intricate cutters with flat debossing details, ensuring clean and precise cuts every time. Check out our article and our video for more tips and tricks.
Parchment Paper:
While you may bake clay right on ceramic tiles or on cookie sheets, this will cause uneven, shiny spots and dimples on the backs of your clay shapes. To prevent this, most clayers bake their earrings on parchment paper. Patty paper sheets are a great option! Please be aware that wax paper is different than parchment paper, and cannot be put into the oven.
Ceramic Tiles or Glass:
The starter kit includes a medium-size ceramic tile to use as a work surface, but you may find that you might like additional tiles or a larger work area. Ceramic tiles and glass are the recommended work surfaces for clay. You can use a glass cutting mat made for crafting, but picture frame glass works perfectly as well! Ceramic tiles are great because they can go in the oven. If you choose to purchase ceramic tiles, make sure you're choosing a completely smooth tile without any texture. It should be so smooth and shiny that it reflects light, just like glass.
Pasta Machine:
Consider the pasta machine your crafting ally. This indispensable tool not only streamlines the conditioning process but also saves valuable time by quickly creating smooth, even clay slabs. However, not all pasta machines are created equal. We strongly advise against opting for cheaper craft store models. These often come with limited thickness settings, restricting your ability to use many detailed cutters. Additionally, they may lack the durability required for continuous use, leading to potential breakdowns within a short period.
Invest in the quality and versatility of the Mercato Atlas 150 (15 cm wide) or Atlas 180 (18 cm wide). Italian-made and known for their durability, these pasta machines offer a range of thickness settings, ensuring compatibility with a wide array of detailed cutters. There is also a past machine motor available for added convenience.
Discount Codes from Our Industry Leading Partners
As a special bonus, our kit includes exclusive discount codes from some of the best resources and suppliers in the polymer clay community:
- The Blue Bottle Tree: An amazing resource for information and detailed tutorials, perfect for both beginners and experienced crafters.
- Woode's Goodies:: Offering a fantastic selection of mica powders, glitters, UV resin, and more to enhance your clay creations.
- Fire Mountain Gems: A go-to source for jewelry findings and clay supplies, providing everything you need to complete your projects.
- Monarch Pine: Specializing in jewelry findings and accessories, helping you add the perfect finishing touches to your designs.
Unleash Your Creativity
Our Polymer Clay Starter Kit is your gateway to endless creative possibilities. With top-quality tools, vibrant clay colors, and helpful resources, you're equipped to craft beautiful and unique pieces. Whether you're just starting or honing your skills, this kit has everything you need.
Happy crafting, and don't hesitate to reach out with any questions!
