CREATIVE CRAFTING

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As an alternative to having to pay high-priced craft store charges to use with polymer clay, begin using these tips to locate low-cost and vital tools right in your own home.

There’s a device for each job, but one of the primary aspects of polymer clay is you can use nearly anything as a tool. There’s no reason to spend high-priced craft store prices to make professional-looking merchandise with polymer clay. Have a look around your own home and find out what you could put together. Will it slice? Are you able to press it into your clay to create a pattern? You’ll be amazed at what you’ll come across when you begin looking. The tiny toothpick is often an very helpful tool when dealing with tiny clay objects.

When going through your home or going to a garage sale, search for items like carving tools, punch tools, and knitting/crochet needles, dental tools. Something for cutting such as razor blades, cutters and any kind of pliers are much more handy than high-priced ‘official’ clay cutters. Toothpicks are ideal to etch patterns into your clay or to smooth rough sides on hard-to-reach places that are far too little for fingers. Old candles as well as, vases, and planting pots may be embellished and made new with clay. Pretty wine glasses, possibly from your collection that is not complete, make attractive pieces with clay vines and flowers twisted about the stem.

Polymer clay can be used in a wide variety of craft projects. Use polymer clay to make embellishments for scrapbooking projects, elements for jewelry making, miniature items for dollhouses, toppers for handmade cards and a wide range of other items.

Unlike other clay mediums, polymer clay requires very little in the way of special tools and most people will have the basics at home. Once you have progressed past the basics then one or two additional tools are worth purchasing. One of these is a pasta machine. A standard domestic pasta machine is suitable. You do not have to purchase anything fancy.

As a polymer clay tool a pasta machine will prove to be very useful and can be used in a variety of ways. Condition polymer clay, roll even, flat sheets of polymer clay, different decorative polymer clay techniques can all be obtained through the use of a pasta machine.

Polymer clay fed through the pasta machine squeezes the clay between two rollers and produces a flat sheet. Pasta makers can be adjusted to bring the rollers closer together or move them further apart thereby allowing you to control the thickness of your sheets.

The ways that a pasta machine can be used include:

• Conditioning polymer clay – The action of running the polymer clay through the pasta machine several times produces more pliable polymer clay. Start by working the clay through the largest setting on the rollers as the clay becomes fully conditioned you can adjust the setting to a smaller width.

This shadow box decoration is a wonderful holiday craft for the whole family.  It is easier than you might think and a wonderful keepsake.

Use small ornaments and Christmas figures to make a Christmas scene, with shifting snow, in a shadow box. This would be a nice activity to do with your children – let them play with the figures until they create a pleasing arrangement, then help them to glue everything in place.

You Will Need

• shadow box – at least 1½ inches deep (available at craft stores or dollar stores)
• assorted Christmas figures and small decorations
• optional: alphabet blocks
• strong craft glue or glue gun and glue sticks
• crystal snow or fine artificial snow

Project Instructions:

Remove the back of the shadow box and set aside.

Collect an assortment of Christmas figures and decorations and, working from the back, start to play with different arrangements until you create a Christmas scene that you like when seen from the front.

Begin gluing in the various pieces. If you’re using alpabet blocks, as we did, make sure they either sit firmly against the glass, or have enough clearance to prevent fake snow from getting trapped in front of them. Some possible short letter combinations for the alphabet blocks include NOEL, XMAS, SNOW, ANGEL or JOY.

Make sure all the pieces are glued in firmly; you don’t want them coming adrift after the shadow box is filled with snow and assembled. Let the glue dry.

With the holidays almost coming up faster than some of us would like it is time to start thinking of ways to wrap our gifts.  Gifts should be presented to be one of a kind and a good way to do this is by using unique, personalized gift bags.

Gift bags do not have to be generic store bought items.  But should reflect your tastes and that of the person to whom you are giving the gift.  For that reason I suggest you dig out your scrapbooking papers, embellishments and other doo-dads and get to work having some fun and making personalized gift bags!

The Basics

Begin with simple, plain gift bags I have found that if I use a plain bag such as tan-colored I get better results. These plain gift bags come in a variety of colors and can be found at any craft store and even some scrapbooking stores. Once your bag is complete, stuff in some matching tissue paper to give your bag an extra burst of color!

Here are some ideas for different individuals in your life! Since I haven’t started mine yet I borrowed some ideas from Kayla Richards Filip at Scrapbook.com.

For Teachers

• school-themed patterned paper
• black-and-white dotted grosgrain ribbon
• assorted buttons
• red organdy ribbon
• plain #2 pencil

It doesn’t seem that long ago that my children were young. I was never a skilled crafter but what I like to call a “crafter wanna be”. In a lot of respects I am still not a skilled crafter. So what does this have to do with the subject at hand? Let me explain.

Some parents are skilled crafters. Others are doing well to cut paper in a reasonably straight line. No matter which group you fall into, crafting with your kids can be beneficial for all involved.

Few things bring families together like crafting. Here are some of the good things that come out of crafting with your kids.

• Crafting builds creativity. Developing minds need a creative outlet, and crafting provides the opportunity for kids to use their imaginations. It helps them learn to solve problems, and it could lay the groundwork for a lifetime of interest in art. For parents, getting creative can help reduce stress and promote using the brain in ways that we don’t have a reason to use it every day.

• * Crafting teaches kids to follow directions. This seems like a very basic skill, but we all know adults who can’t seem to follow directions. When kids craft, they learn the consequences of not following directions when their projects do not turn out as expected. This instills in them the importance of doing things the right way the first time.

There are some wonderful tools available for the Polymer Clay artist.   One of these that I have used quite extensively in my projects involving fairies is the flexible mold.

You can purchase them at your craft store.  There will be a wide variety of molds for you to use, everything from feet, emblems, leafs, flowers, hands, faces, even body molds.  These molds are made of a flexible rubberized material. However, I have learned there are some tricks to using these molds to your advantage.

First if you have never worked with Polymer Clay the first thing you should learn is to condition it.  That means take a small amount of clay off of the block and knead it with your fingers until it becomes very pliable.

Next pick the mold you would like to use and measure out the conditioned clay to approximate size of the shape you are trying to mold.  In the case of a face, pinch a very small end for the impression of the nose.  Press your clay into the mold.  Remove any excess clay around the impression.   You want the clay to be level with the mold do not want it to overlap on the outer mold surface.

To release the clay from the mold, gently rub clay off the edge of the mold toward the center of the molded piece.   This will give you a nice clean edge on your molded piece.  The mold is flexible so if you are careful you can release your piece by gently pressing opposite sides and your piece should release from the mold.

Check out what’s happening at CreateForLess this month. May 2 was National Scrapbooking Day, but they are celebrating all month long with these great promotions…

It’s a celebration of scrapbooking this month at CreateForLess. Our Scrapbooking Sale is featuring some of our most popular scrapbooking supplies at great low prices. Sale items change weekly – this week we’re featuring scrapbooking albums, then adhesives, punches and Bazzill Cardstock. This is the perfect promotion to add to your scrapbooking section, especially if you’re already promoting National Scrapbooking Day.

Shop, Crop and Save at the CreateForLess Scrapbooking Sale.

When its cold out there’s no better time to stay indoors and craft the day away.

Brand-tastic Sale

This month our featured promotion is the Brand-tastic Sale. Each week we’ll feature a different must-have brand, with extra savings on our entire selection. Brands that will be on sale are Sculpey clay, Clover crochet and knitting needles, Gingher scissors and K&Co scrapbooking items. These are all top selling brands, which mean top commissions for your site this month.