MOLLDING CLAY RECIPE

MOLLDING CLAY RECIPE

Recipe for White Clay Dough:

This particular white clay dough is really easy to make.

It takes only two ingredients: baking soda and cornstarch (known as corn flour in the UK). It’s easy to make, and it dries snow-white, making it perfect for these simple tree ornaments.

• 1 cup baking soda (bicarbonate Soda)
• 1/2 cup corn starch (corn flour in the UK)
• 3/4 cup of warm water

Mix dry ingredients in a cooking pot, and add water.  Stir over medium heat until it starts bubbling and pulling away from the sides of the pot.  It will begin to form a substance similar to play dough, and that’s when you remove it from the heat.

Let it cool a bit, and then remove from the pot, and knead it into a soft, supple ball of dough.

Feel free to add glitter to the kneading stage like The Imagination Tree did.

What to do if your dough is too wet?

If you happen to add a little too much water, as I did (that happens when you’re cooking with 4 kids), simply toss a little extra baking soda on the counter top and knead it into your dough until it feels right.

 

Bread Clay Recipe

 

This clay is particularly good for making items that will see heavy use, like beads and playing pieces for games. All you do is mix white glue into shredded white bread and add color with a bit of paint.
This recipe makes enough dough to make beads for a necklace and a bracelet, or a set of game pieces for a board game. It's easy to make more clay by just doubling or tripling the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 3 slices of white bread
• 2 tablespoons (30 ml) white glue (Elmer's, PVA)
• Bowl or empty plastic container
• Plastic spoon

• Acrylic paint
• Zipper sandwich bags
• Optional: Disposable gloves, wax paper, lemon juice, drinking straw, toothpick, needle, polymer clay cutters

 

How to Make Bread Clay

1.   Remove the crusts from the slices of white bread. Tear the bread into very small pieces and place into a bowl. It's important to use white bread to make a white base for other colors.

2.   Add the glue to the bread a little at a time while mixing with a spoon and then mix with your hands. This is a bit messy, and you may prefer to wear gloves, but the final clay is well worth the effort and the mess. The bread and glue mixture will come together into a ball as you mix. Continue to knead until the clay becomes smooth and pliable. Add more glue if the clay is crumbly, and add more bread if the clay is tacky.

3.   (optional) To add a nice smell and prevent the clay from going sour, add a few drops of lemon juice. If you use the clay immediately, you don't need to add lemon.

4.   For colored clay, knead a few drops of paint into the clay. Knead thoroughly to get an evenly colored clay.

How to Make Paper Clay

 

Paper clay is a cheap, handy sculpting material made from toilet paper, glue, and a few other hardware store supplies.

To make paper clay, you'll need toilet paper as well as a few supplies you can find at the hardware store. This recipe results in a smooth, malleable clay you can mold over any type of prepared form. It dries into a hard surface to which you can apply paint or varnish.

Ingredients:

• 1 roll of single ply toilet paper
• 1 cup premixed joint compound
• 3/4 cup PVA glue (white school glue)
• 2 tablespoons mineral oil
• 1/2 cup white flour
• 2 large bowls
• Electric mixer
• Measuring cups

Remove the toilet paper from the roll. It's less messy to slip the entire roll of paper off of the cardboard roll at once, rather than unwinding the paper entirely. Place the toilet paper in one of the bowls.

Fill the bowl with water. Pour it over the toilet paper until it's completely saturated. Push the toilet paper down into the water to make sure it all gets wet.

Squeeze out the toilet paper and place the pulp in a separate bowl. Tear it off in smaller chunks (1 inch or less) so you can squeeze out as much water as possible. Place the pulpy chunks in a separate bowl so you can mix them with the other ingredients. Keep going until you've squeeze out all of the toilet paper.

Measure 1 1/2 cups of toilet paper pulp. One roll of plain toilet paper typically equals a cup and a half of pulp. If your brand of toilet paper makes very small or large rolls, you might end up with less or more pulp than you need. Make more toilet paper pulp or discard the excess as needed, so you have 1 1/2 cups of pulp in the bowl.

Add the remaining ingredients. To the bowl with the pulp, add a cup of premixed joint compound, 3/4 cup white school glue, 2 tablespoons mineral oil, and 1/2 cup white flour.

Mix up the clay until smooth. Use your electric mixer to beat the clay at a high speed. The paper fibers will break down and blend with the joint compound, glue, oil and flour until it takes on a smooth, dough-like consistency.

If kept in an airtight container, the clay will keep for several weeks.