Polymer Clay beads and buttons

What you can do with polymer clay it’s up to your imagination, really! It’s so enjoyable and relaxing that you have to try if you never done!

By the way, the cover picture in this post is my cat Snowball. He loves to sleep in unusual places… in this case was on the top of my polymer clay buttons!????

There are loads of types of polymer clay. For UK Customers, click here to by FIMO clay. It is good to try different makes and choose one you like more. For USA customers, click here to buy Kato clay.

Visit my jewellery shop where you can find unique handmade jewellery and my tutorials here.

Polymer clay beads

It is easier than you think! Add different design, shapes and colours as you practice.

For the bead above I used polymer clay extruder which is one of the best buy products if you want to create amazing and unique designs.

How I make polymer clay beads:

1-Choose the colors you are going to use.

2-Using an acrylic roller or a pasta machine stretch the clay as thinner as possible. I use number 1 on my pasta machine.

Note: a pasta machine is an investment that you should think about it, if you want to get nice finished pieces. Its is not just save time and make the work easier but it will add a more professional look. There are manual and electric pasta machines and of course different prices. These are my suggestions: Manual and Eletric.

3-Cut circles with the extruder end so the tower clay that you going to make will fit inside the extruder. You can get the extruder at Amazon.

4-Add the circles together. It does not matter the order. Try different orders and see the difference.

5-Insert the “tower” into the extruder and roll it! at the begining it is a bit hard on a manual extruder.

You never know how it is going to be!

Beautiful cuts! This is my favourite part: Creation!

Note: I use this little cuts to cover the beads as well.

6- So, cut the length same size and add then together as you wish

7-I choose to add a black stripe in the middle, as you can see above and cover it with another layer of one of the colors

8- Make the balls same size.

9- Squize nicely so you have two different sizes.

10- Slice then and cover your beads as you wish

Baking Polymer Clay

How to bake polymer clay is about practice and understand your own oven!. The oven temperature should be according to brand and thickness of your piece. The oven temperature always varies, so to make sure your oven is set to the correct temperature its recommended to get a oven thermometer that does not cost much as sometimes what is showing outside is not what is happening inside! Generally, I bake my pieces for 50 min at 120°C. If my pieces are very thin or small, I reduce the temperature to 110 but still baking for 50 min minimum. I have burnt some pieces at the beginning, so do not be discouraged if this happen to you and remember: Don’t give up! You need to “know” your oven, and so, how different polymer clay brands cure and this is just really with time and practice!

The more you practice, you will get to know how to work with polymer clay in your oven. Use scrap play and do some experiments. Following the instructions on your polymer clay pack but remember that it needs to get to the right temperature or your pieces will break when cold. Some people use a separate oven (portable) just to bake polymer clay.

Polymer Clay Scrap – don’t trow it away!

You can make numerous things with scrap clay. I made buttons this time:

Polymer Clay Buttons

It is very important to condition your clay. So play with it, smash until it is very soft.

In this project I used my polymer clay scraps.

Stretch with a roller or use a pasta machine and cut the shapes you like. Metal cutters and cutter blades are available on craft shops.

Make holes and bake as per instructions on the clay pack you are using.

I added some texture on my buttons using an old crochet towel. Fabrics are good to make different textures, try it on!

See how to make the polymer clay necklace here.

Bracelets made with Polymer Clay at my shop here where you can also find my Tutorials