iI you work in polymer clay you may have at some point looked at tools meant for
pottery clay sculpting and wondered if there were any of them that you could
use in your work. Well, today I have a review for you of a set of pottery clay
and sculpting tools by Arteza. I'll show you what's in it and talk about
ones I would use in my work. Hi there, Sandy here, welcome to another Friday
findings video at keepsakecrafts.net. So this is another product that Arteza
sent to me to review, it's a set of 42 polymer clay and sculpting tools, premium.
So a big bag of tools, let me take all these out and spare you all the crinkle,
crinkle. Well, my goodness that is quite the pile of tools. Right off the bat this
sponge i don't know that i would use it much on my polymer clay. i might find a
use. Obviously when you work with earthen clays water is a tool that you use with
it and a sponge would be useful for smoothing and i don't know what else,
it's been ages since I did pottery ,but you could find other uses for this. Like
if we flatten out a piece to make a flower petal I often see folks... we'll use
one of these little ball tools, they thin out the edges, sometimes in their hands,
sometimes on a sponge. That seems to work pretty well, it would probably be better with a
bigger ball tool, but, so not its intended purpose but something you could find a
use for and speaking of the ball tools: wow, that is a truly tiny ball tool so
that could be handy. I don't know that I have one that small. So there's... that's
another it's bigger but...
You can see it now. So far a nice variety of sizes of ball tools, so those
are definitely useful in our polymer clay. This is for cutting blocks of clay,
the earthen clays often come in big blocks and you would undo the wire. I
don't know that I would use this much in polymer. There's a lot of these loop
tools and I can see these being useful for polymer clay if you work in a bigger
scale. The scale I work in is little miniatures often usually no more than
something that can fit in the palm of my hand so most of these are really too big
for that. These ones are wire tools which cut
through the clay in different ways than these ones that are flat pieces of
wire but they certainly look like they could be useful depending on, again, what
it is that you do, the scale you like to work at. Here's a needle tool, a fairly
thick one and a little sharp blade on the other end. I kind of have a love/hate
relationship with two sided tools because I like to have my things out
where I can see them. I've mentioned it before I'm very visual and if they're in
a jar then by design you can only see one end so that bugs me sometimes but it
is efficient, it does take up less space. Here's another wire tool, let's see I've
got a little bit of clay here to play with. I can see where that would be
useful. How do you do that and get a clean
channel? Hmm, that looks like a little a little doorway for a fairy house. Okay so
I'm already seeing some potential. Now this one looks like it's good I think
it's the exact same thing on both ends so that begs the question: why is it two
ended? The tool is the same on both ends but I can see that being
useful. Let's see like this big honkin' one here... I suppose even at the scale that I work
at there have been times when something that would dig out a channel like that could
be very useful. So, yeah. Hmm, yeah can you think of
possibilities and uses? I can. So yes, I think that that's pretty useful. Let's
see how well this cuts, this looks like the other one that I just shown you,
showed you, only bigger, and also you can use that to make shapes like scales or
a sunburst pattern.
Yeah, I can definitely see the usefulness of those tools, this one's very similar.
That was one thing I noticed when I was going through these was there,
it said 42 tools and I think there are let's see 2 4, 6, 39, 40, 41 and 42. Yeah okay,
42. So if they're double ended they may not all be unique.
Do you have 42 completely unique tools? Maybe, maybe not. I'm not sure. Let's see...
Yeah, I got them all mixed up, we looked at the ball tools, the needle tool with
the slicer, here's another slicer triangular slicer shape and here's yet
another shape so I could see these more, in polymer clay what I do, more for
creating impressions than for cutting. So, gouging, yeah. I mean they definitely have
uses but there are duplicates like these scoopy bits are the same, and that's
interesting. I wonder if there's a smaller one in here because there have
been times when I wished to have something like that for really scooping out a nice
smooth round channel. I can't think of what, but I know I've wanted it. Yep, more
of these, that's a slightly different shape just barely scooped, another knife
depending on what you're doing it might be nice to have something not as sharp.
Oh, that was that's loose in the handle, that moved, it would be nice to have
something maybe not as sharp as a clay blade and with a handle so it's a little
bit more maneuverable and safely managed. Oh, I'm so happy about this tool and not
because it's a needle tool, that's a nice needle tool, great. Needle
tools are fantastic. I've seen so many people making things and using the
texture from their handle and I didn't have any tools with that texture and I
love that texture. Isn't that awesome? Waffle cone! So many things, so I'm happy
to have that and that's probably what I'll use it for mostly. I actually have a
tool very very similar to this, the Kemper wipe out tool, which I do use quite
a bit for smoothing and blending. Lots of repetition, shingles, you know,
wherever your imagination goes. Is this for something in particular in
pottery? Cuz I don't know what that's about,
it's makes an interesting shape and impression. I can see using that but it
looks like it's for something very specific. If you know chime in the
comments and let the rest of us know. Same thing again only I think a
different... nope, exact same thing not even a different size. Different
shape and these both look like the same diameter drills, this looks a little big
and most of the time I would use a drill on a piece of baked clay and that's a
pretty big hole. I don't know how much use I would get out of this, it depends
on what you're doing again, the scale in which you work. Is that another one? Oh,
it is.
And more scoopy. Now this is a fantastic tool, this actually I just bought not
that long ago. It's a dental tool now though these are,
I think these are a bit softer but they're great for smoothing in small
areas. Yeah, what was it? Oh, a gum stimulator, that's what it is, and a lot of artists
especially those work at miniatures use them. You can poke, you can draw soft
lines, this is actually very useful. This is fun because those of us are in
polymer clay we love all things texture. This is much faster and more efficient
than using a tooth brush to get that kind of texture. So I like that, I'm gonna
use that. This, again it depends on what you're doing, you know one of these days it
may be just the thing you need. We've all seen tools like these. Sometimes I do
prefer wooden tools to metal. I have the Christi Friesen stainless steel tools
and I love them, they're wonderful, they're beautifully made. Sometimes though I
like the way wood grabs onto the clay better than the way stainless steel
behaves. And that just looks downright scary. Wow, yikes, that's just a really
rough saw. Again, I'm looking at the textures you can create with it which...
that is pretty cool. I can see that being a bit of decorative trim around
something. Oh it looks kind of like from the side like the edges of a coin.
So, possibilities. So another ball tool, this one bigger than the other ones so
that's nice. Now this I am certain there are uses for this.
I can't remember what it was that I was doing, I wanted
something like this, I can't remember what it was.
Yep. Palette knife. I may find myself using this more for
mixing up paints than working in my clay, but again you can use it for cutting and
can use it for making an impression. You can use it for smoothing. For
mixing this would be good for mixing liquid clay with polymer clay to get
like icing effects. This one I was pretty excited about this is a nice tool for
texturing and really quickly roughing up a surface as opposed to taking a
toothpick and doing all that to get like a cake like texture. Now I'm making a
mess of my work surface, but I can definitely see the benefit of this. So,
and it's got that wonderful waffle cone texture! Oh, another size ball tool and
yet another needle tool, and then a couple of spatula things. This one I
don't know that that would replace my clay blade. I suppose in some
circumstances it might be nice to have something this wide and flexible. You
could also use it as a cutter to a certain degree to get nice smooth cuts
and curves, so I can see that. This, ummm, yeah. So there you go,
that is everything in the Arteza set of 42 Pottery and Clay Sculpting Tools,
Premium. If you like to find different ways of using tools and are always
searching for something different and interesting to work in your clay you
might find this useful. So if you, if you want to check it out there will be a
link at my blog post which you will find in
the upper right or down in the description box that will bring you to
my blog where I'll have more information and a link to the products. So thanks for
watching, happy creating, bye bye.