No Such Thing as Scrap Clay Tutorial

You've heard it said many times in polymer clay books, in tutorials, and most likely many other places that there is "no such thing as scrap clay."  But there's a trick to gaining usable scrap clay and not just a mess of murky, brown, dirty ugliness.

What prompted this post was a question I got from another crafter: "How do you store your clay?"  They were highly interested in this because many people store their clay many different ways.  First, I store partially used blocks of clay in a divided beading storage bin.  I have divided my clay by clay colors: red, fuchsia-esque, pinks, yellow, orange, whites, purples, blues, black, browns, specialty, greens, metallics, dark browns, and pastels.  I really don't worry about clay touching or mixing a little. Why? Because by the time it's properly conditioned, those little tiny bits get all absorbed and blended into the clay; and in reality those tiny bits won't change the color of your clay that much.  I use primarily only one type of clay: Premo by Sculpey.  You can see some clay is in "wrapping."  This is because it is Cernit, Kato, or Pardo.  The Fimo is easy to tell apart from the Premo because it is "sectioned" differently than the other clays.  I use my divided storage bin primarily for clay that has been "unblended" by me.  It's straight from the package clay...even if it's little pieces! 

But, not to be undone, I also have a second storage system for my clay: a mini 3 ring binder.  The mini 3 ring binder has a notebook in the front cover pocket, colored dividers, and clear see through insertable pages.  I keep my clay inside these pages.  It's already run through the pasta machine and it's ready to go for my next claying...all you do is take it out, fold in half, and run through the pasta machine.  I do this for all my scrap clay custom blends (which you will see at below) and for all my other custom blends and color combos.  

NO MORE SCRAP CLAY TUTORIAL:

TIME (From Start to Finish): 

• Approximately 35 minutes for every 4 ounces of scrap clay.

MATERIALS: 

• Scrap Clay (At least 4 ounces)
• Pasta Machine

Now for the truth: How long does it take you to have little tiny bits of clay floating all over the place?  Some of those little bits can be used for details on your pieces, but most likely even the tiniest of bits (especially from custom marble blends and mokume gane) end up in the "scrap pile."  I'm praying that you have one of those...if not...GET ONE!  Here's my scrap pile.  This has been accumulated over approximately two months....let me tell you, there's a LOT of clay here, it's just hard to tell!  In total what I have shown here is about 8oz. of "scrap clay" pieces, components, balls, and nubby ends.

Here's the first thing...separate all those bits of clay from each other and put them into coordinating color palettes.  Whatever you decide will work great...don't stress or worry over this, just do it! Every time you do this your "piles" will be different.  For my scrap pile I had a custom order that used a lot of pink, so there was quite a bit of different pink colors floating around my scrap pile.  Next time this might not be the case.  Seriously though, use what you have and don't stress about your piles.  This part takes the longest in most cases, so don't worry or panic, just take your time.  Pictured at right are my separated scrap piles (clockwise from top left): pinks, browns, darks, brights, whites & tiny bits too small to separate, reds, and yellows.  You'll also notice in each pile I have some white or blended white clay with pearl in it.  This is too is scrap clay; but I've added it to each pile to liven up the colors so they don't dull out and become too murky.  *Remember, white acts as a brightener.*

Once you have done this, you are going to take all those pieces (starting with the lightest so as not to color taint your hands) and put them in your hand.  Now close your hand around all those pieces and begin to squeeze gently and warm the clay.  Slightly "smoosh" it as you are working, again this will help bring out its polymer properties.  Then roll them into loose balls.  You can see all my balled up clay here in this picture.  Looks kind of gross, doesn't it?!  Trust me...this is part of the process!  :-)

Now that you've done the hard part (which was getting all those tiny bits so that they were sticky and so that they weren't hard little rocks) it's time to condition and blend them.  This is the easiest part, but it takes the most time.  Just flatten the balls and plop them into your pasta machine and blend, blend, blend until there are NO streaks remaining.  You'll be really surprised what you get when you are "done."  In my "scrap clay" piles these are the BEAUTIFUL colors that I got.  I'll show close ups in a minute, but look at these!  Before they were grungy, ugly, frightening tiny bits and lumps of clay.  Now they are beautiful usable colors.  Because most of my custom blends contain pearl, most of these colors have gorgeous shimmery metallic palettes to them.  The brown on the bottom right had embossing powder and glitter in one of the mixes, so this blend will have a special touch when it is baked.  You can also blend the darker or more single toned colors with a touch of pearl to give it pizazz and a lustre that is simply striking.  But this is the point: USE YOUR SCRAP CLAY! 

Now the big question..."What do you do with them?"  That's the beauty of it: you can do anything you want to with it!  You can use them to make custom Mokume Gane blends, design sculptures with it, make unique jewelry components, use them as a base of another newer blend, it really doesn't matter.  All you have to do is DO IT!  Let your imagination run wild and enjoy this new endeavor of "no scrap left behind!"  

Here's the most important key to remember: Had you taken all those tiny bits, bumps, and pieces of clay in the first picture and balled them up all together you would have had a murky, ugly, non usable grayish mess!  By following this super simple tutorial you too can have usable scrap clay.  By doing this tutorial you have retained colors & their properties and given a second life to what might have become "trash."