So in part 1 I discovered that for optimum strength you should turn your oven off at the end of the curing cycle and leave your polymer clay pieces to cool down slowly in the cooling oven. This was just an initial test to see if the set up was going to work before I made lots of samples with more complicated curing, and something I had always been curious about. I was happy that the test worked and set about making more samples (got a blister...

As well as making my mums birthday present (will show you soon – can’t show you now as she might read my blog) I am also making cake forks for my other sister in law. She has Dorset Fruits Crockery by Poole Pottery so I decided to make her some matching cake forks. She has a set for each of the family with their own fruits and they have plums (as shown), apples, grapes and pears. I am still experimenting with inlaying or having a...

Having recently discovered Kato clay I am now a complete convert. I love the Kato clay to work with and I now find Fimo too soft and sticky (although I now realise this is a problem with fimo at the moment). The problem with Kato is it is SO difficult to condition. I haven’t tried the latest formulation of Kato which is supposed to be easier to condition yet.I have tried some different methods for conditioning Kato clay and here are my...

First published March 2010 – updated slightly May 2019 For years I used Fimo polymer clay which is readily available here in the UK. Recently I found Cindy Leitz and having read a lot on her blog and seeing her beautiful colour mixing recipes I decided I ought to try Premo clay. I’ve collected some other brand reviews and comparison on Pinterest here. Being a fan of Donna Kato’s work and having her excellent book I decided to...

Now I have decided on a brand to use, Kato Clay I have started working my way through some of the exercises in Maggie Maggio and Lindly Haunani’s book- Polymer Clay Color Inspirations . I am no colour expert having had no formal art training, I did a science degree and worked in scientific research for a while before retraining to teach in Primary Schools (4 to 11 year olds ). I do know the basics of colour mixing but I struggle a little...

I just realised that although there is a fair amount of talk on flickr and in the comments about these brown Kato Extruder beads I haven’t actually posted a picture of them here. I know you have seen the necklace which uses a disc pendant and some smaller beads using this technique but here are the beads I made first. I am writing the tutorial as we speak! It’ll be here soon.