Point# 36-Yay! Clay! Hooray! A Review.

I used to play with polymer clay a fair bit. I made some really cool athames (ritual knives…NOT for cutting anything physical) that had a Moon Goddess handle, as well as little seated Goddess offering bowls, which one of my friends dubbed “gum holders”. Yeah. I don’t talk to her anymore.

I stopped farting around with polymer clay, well, mostly because it’s hard to really fart around with polymer clay. It’s kind of a pain in the ass to fiddle with casually because even if you are just futzing with it, once you have done the three dimensional equivalent of a doodle, then you pretty much have to bake it and keep track of if it has baked properly, and given that you have to bake it 15 minutes per 1/4 inch so math is involved…bah, makes me want to nap. (Editor’s note: No, she is not kidding. Yes, she is this lazy.)

Recently, though, I was at the local craft emporium (ok, Michael’s) and found that next to the little slabs of Premo, and the slightly littler slabs of Sculpey III, there were Sculpey III sized slabs of a third option. Turns out the very groovy Craft Smart brand (which I guess is Michael’s sort of generic brand?) has made their own brand of polymer clay. Normally, the cost is not so low compared to the Scupley III blocks-about 1.29 vs 1.99, but not bad if you have to get many blocks. It was on sale, however, and at 88 cents a block, was worth purchasing to try out.

Other reviews have not been kind, and I must clarify that I do not use a pasta roller to blend colours, nor do I make canes or tiny things with PC. Either of these things may be compromised by the lesser quality of this no-name brand, but for my purposes, it was exceedingly adequate. The colour choices are poop, only about a third or fourth of the colours available to the less cheap consumer, but again, I tend to paint my creations anyhoo, so that did not overly concern me. I bought a white block (by the by, different colours seemed to have different textures) and figured I would paint whatever I made.

Tonight, I felt like farting with polymer clay. I doodled around with it and made a flower, the laughable and clumsy results with which I shall entertain you in a later post. I was very pleased with the clay itself and will share a completed project. No need to thank me.

My mushroom.

With cat foot in background. Macy likes to have quality time with me when I am in the bathroom, and he thought this was one of those special moments. I just needed the light.

Dammit, Macy!

So, there. Mushroom. I like it. It’s a take on the traditional red with white polky dotty doohickeys, but has the important distinction of matching the crap in my house better.