Polymer Clay Dos and Don'ts for Absolute Beginners

This is not a tutorial, and doesn't reiterate very general directions about baking times, comparisons of brands, or things like that which are easily found and researched by a google search or a myriad of books at the library or bookstore. It's also a work in progress, as can be seen by the incomplete last several things on the list. I will be adding to it soon.

This is just a collection of tips--dos and don'ts. It is highly biased and reflects my own tastes, preferences, and experiences. But my beads get some attention and I also get a lot of inquiries and questions regarding my specific techniques and tips. I've been working with polymer clay for about a decade, not extensively, but enough so that I have made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot fro them.

It's my observation that there are a lot of similar things people do with the clay when making beads and components, and these things can be fun to experiment with, but the end result is that they turn out a pretty ubiquitous and mediocre polymer clay bead. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But I offer these tips as guidelines for total beginners so you can avoid the common and get straight to the unique and uncommon, while producing a high quality bead suitable for selling.

Dos and Don'ts

1. Avoid marbling.

A marbled effect with polymer clay is appealing because it's very immediately satisfying to see intricate patterns appear so easily and quickly when mixing of different clay colors. It's a natural effect of mixing and is quite fun to manipulate. It's kind of like vacation pictures though--you had to be there. Marbled effects are very common in polymer clay beads and the only truly striking ones are done with specific techniques of manipulation that are developed by lots of polymer clay experience. DO, of course, marble-experiment with color & pattern manipulation while mixing colors (see #3 below;) DO allow yourself to become hypnotized by the all the fun and beauty of marbling.  While mixing colors, notice how color itself can be appropriated to be used to show motion, depth, and line.  Instead of marbling, I suggest starting color patterning using simple cane work...

2. Use canes.

Making canes is as simple and fun as making beads. In its extreme simplest form, it involves rolling a piece of polymer clay into a long snake shapes. In its most complicated form, it involves strategic placement of different shapes, sizes, and colors of clay to compose a single rolled snake. People use these complex canes to create pictures of amazing patterns, animals, scenes, flowers, etc.  Sometimes these complex canes start out as big as industrial paint cans and then they are greatly elongated so they arrive at their final small form.  It's a fascinating process to watch.  Describing it with words is pointless though; you have to see it to believe it.  But using even extreme simple canes can impart truly unique and eye-catching style to your beads. You can check out this really fantastic book, and/or google 'polymer clay cane' to find basic instructions.

2. Always mix colors.

I suggest never using clay straight from the pack. It's the same reason painters usually don't apply paint straight from the tube onto the canvas. It's more interesting to use and see custom blended, non-prefab colors. The exceptions are black and white.

4. Forget the fancy or 'effect' clays.

These clays include transparent, glow in the dark, stone, metallics, and more. One reason is because these clays can be temperamental and require special attention with baking times and whatnot. It's not so difficult to deal with once you have some experience behind you, but why start out with more high maintenance clays?

Another reason is that you may develop a reliance on the effects rather than experiment and create your own unusual textures and patterns. It's easy to tell at first glance beads made straight from the effect clays. Once you get some experimentation down with color and alteration techniques, you'll be able to incorporate the effect clays much better and use them for all they're worth.

5. Forget the fancy tools.

All of the tools you really need to make nice beginner beads you probably already have. The specialty polymer clay tools are helpful and geared for using with polymer clay, but they can be expensive and are unnecessary in your initial attempts. Once you get the hang of working with the clay, you'll start thinking of ways to manipulate the clay and the specialty tools will be better utilized. Simply put, wait until you have some experience until you begin purchasing polymer clay tools.

6. Don't use nail polish on polymer clay.

I have seen suggestions in polymer clay tutorials and books that advise using nail polish as a colorant or sealant. Whatever you do, don't use nail polish on polymer clay beads. I have several that I used clear polish on as a sealant, and they do not age well. They become grotesquely gummy and sticky. And they smell like nail polish. This may be because of the climate I live in, which is pretty humid, but if you're selling items with nail polish sealant, they could be going anywhere. There's really no need to use nail polish for colorants since you can mix any color from the clay itself, and then add colored details with acrylic paint.

Don't use sprays that aren't specifically made for use on polymer clay.  Even if they seem ok at first.  I used Krylon gloss spray on some beads for sealant, and they dried great and look really cool. I had earrings up in my Etsy shop with the Krylon-ed poly beads, and I had to remove them because they became sticky in time. I'm glad I caught that before they sold.

If you like a glossy look, there are specific sealants made for polymer clay. 

7. Make Round(ish) beads

Polymer clay likes to be round and fat. It's very tempting to start out being very sculptural with the beads, since the clay is so easy to work with. But there are a lot of problems that come into play with more exotic shapes.

First, different thicknesses of clay require different baking times. This means if you have a single piece with several thicknesses, the thinner areas are going to be overbaked in order to get the thick parts baked properly, or the reverse. Either way, the piece will be compromised because of incorrect baking.

Also, thin or flatter pieces are very susceptible to bending and breakage even when they are baked correctly. There is often way too much flexibility in these shapes to use in jewelry.

My advice is to start with simple round, nugget, rondelle or other chubby, very centralized shapes, get that down, and then branch out into adding some more exotic ideas once you master the basic shapes that work. There are ways to amend these basic shapes to get more exotic shapes like pods, flowers, and even beads with points and such, while remaining true to the fat and round dynamic.

8. Make and use your own molds.

9. Alter, alter, alter.

10. Condition the clay WELL.