Hi there.
Sandy here.
Welcome to another Friday Findings video at KeepsakeCrafts.net.
Today I'm going to talk to you about a very important thing in your polymer clay and that
is how to bake it properly.
So many times I've seen wonderful tutorials for polymer clay items and they tell you to
bake it for ten minutes and that's just wrong and I'm going to show you why today and also
give you some other tips for baking your polymer clay properly.
So as many of us do, I learned all about the proper way to bake polymer clay by making
mistakes.
Many years ago some of my first projects were from this book.
This is Maureen Carlson's "How to make Clay Characters" and I actually made several of
these cuties and you know what?
If you look around in my studio today none of them are there because I baked them improperly
and I conditioned them improperly and in the decade or so since I made them, they have
crumbled.
I did finally remake one and there she is.
I've shared her on my Instagram.
So today I'm going to show you what I've learned about baking polymer clay properly.
So this is my baking station.
This is everything I need to bake polymer clay properly and as you can see, it's just
two aluminum roasting tins that I got I think for under a dollar each at Job Lot and then
inside here I have a bunch of paraphernalia that I use for baking.
More about that in a minute.
Inside the pan I have a piece of card stock that I've accordion folded and this is great
for baking beads.
This just gives them little channels to sit in and then the idea is that you just have
one pan on the bottom with your items in it.
Have another pan on top and then you can clip it together.
Now I've seen it suggested that you clip your pans together using metal binder clips and
they work great.
The only problem with that I found is I'm impatient and I want to get into my clay right
after or sometimes there's a good reason that I want to get to the clay before it's completely
cooled, so I love to use wooden clothespins because even right out of a 275 degree oven,
I can handle these.
Don't touch the metal part, but I can handle these and then use a potholder to take off
the top and get at my stuff inside.
The only limitation with this would be that the height can't be higher than the two pans
stacked together, but other than that, it's fantastic and I have found ways around that.
I've made a foil collar going around the two to allow me to make it a little bit taller.
And then in this bag I have some important things for baking.
I have first of all just paper and card that I bake things on so that they don't get shiny
spots.
I often bake on the ceramic tiles that I create on, but if you bake directly on those, the
clay that's touching the tile will get a shiny spot.
Sometimes I'm baking oddly shaped things, like my dragons.
Sometimes their heads or different appendages need to be propped and that's what this batting
is for.
It is fine.
This has been through 275 degree oven many, many times and it's just fine.
The same with all this paper and these are just for building armatures and such and then
also I have all these pieces of toilet paper and paper towel tubes for making curves in
pieces.
And again, because this is paper your pieces won't get shiny spots.
Now little bits of toilet tissue are great for propping up pieces, filling out pieces
because when you bake, polymer clay gets weak.
It slumps.
So for example on this dragon, you've seen him.
I propped his ears.
I would just put a little roll of toilet tissue in there while it was baking to keep it from
slumping in the oven.
Once it's cool it's nice and firm.
Now the really most important thing I wanted to talk about today was the time you spend
baking.
Now before I get to time on baking, there's one other thing you need to correctly bake
your polymer clay and that is accurate temperature.
This is an oven thermometer.
It's a nice one with a probe that can go in the oven and then this sits on the counter
top and you can just keep an eye on the temperature.
You can program it in different ways too.
Home ovens are notorious for being inaccurate.
If your oven spikes too high, it's going to burn your clay.
If it runs too low, it's not going to be properly cured.
So it needs to be at the correct temperature for the correct amount of time, specified
by the manufacturer.
And actually usually it needs to be a little bit longer.
The temperature, keep it to what they say, but the time, well let me show you.
Here I have some samples of conditioned clay and then I baked them for different amounts
of time.
So I've got two different thicknesses here.
Now so many polymer clay directions say to bake them for ten minutes.
So here I have the thickest sheet on my pasta machine and then a double thickness and these
were both baked for ten minutes at 275.
This clay was thoroughly conditioned first.
All of this was conditioned together so it's all conditioned the same.
The only difference is that they were baked for different times.
So here's a piece, ten minutes and like nothing, it snaps.
It's not flexible, it's not pliant.
So if you make a piece with thin bits like wings or any kind of thin appendage, even
a bowl and you only bake it for ten minutes, that's what you get.
It's going to be brittle and crumble.
This thicker piece, again snapped right away.
Super easy.
So ten minutes is not long enough.
Most clay packages say to bake them for 30 minutes per quarter inch of thickness.
So if this is 1/4" thick, it's around there, maybe a little less, I would bake it for at
least 30 minutes, if not more like 45.
Here's a couple of the exact same conditioned pieces, same thicknesses baked for 30 minutes.
Now this one you can see I can turn it into a boomerang.
I can bend it.
It's got a little bit of crease in there when it gets bent.
You can see how much stronger and flexible it is and yes, polymer clay is supposed to
be flexible once it's baked.
It will, unless you have a different kind of brand, I don't know any that would be super
rigid when they're baked.
And let's see this thicker one.
And now let's move on to the ones that were baked for 60 minutes.
Now this is even more flexible and pliant.
I know it's hard for you to tell on camera, but I can feel it as I'm bending it.
It's bending so much more easily.
I don't know if the camera is picking it up, but it didn't get that white crease at the
bend that this one did.
It's just really flexible and even this thick one that you would think would be quite brittle,
look at that.
I can bend it and flex it.
So the only time that you would bake something for 10 minutes and even then I would probably
do it longer, is if you were pre-baking a piece.
For example, back to my little dolly here.
As I was creating her, I made her shoes and socks and her legs and attached them to her
body, which is inside the dress and then I baked them so that I could handle them and
not squish away my details while I added the dress.
In fact, I added the dress and the arms and the collar and then baked that and then I
added the head and the cat and then I baked that and then I think I added the hair and
the bows afterwards.
So you can do it and it doesn't hurt your clay to bake it as many, many times as you
need to as long as you don't go over the temperature that the manufacturer states and also that
your final bake is as long as your whole piece needs.
So yes, if I look at the thickest part of the dolly, she's and I usually get out a ruler,
let's see.
Possibly the thickest part of her is her head and she's a good inch thick and yes, I baked
her for two hours.
And her hair is flexible, unlike the last one I made where over the years I would just
touch it with a dusting brush and it would just snap off and be brittle and I didn't
realize what I had done wrong until later.
So this little gal will last a lot longer than the previous version.
So to sum up, bake for at least half an hour per quarter inch at the thickest point of
your piece.
Make sure you have an accurate temperature in your oven and pre-bake as many times as
you need to with your project, but also I would say baking inside that foil covered
tent that I showed you earlier will help protect your clay from darkening in the oven.
And some people have expressed concerns with baking polymer clay in a home oven.
I don't know that it's that big a deal, but baking it in the foil tent alleviates any
of those concerns.
I hope that you found this helpful and that from now on you'll be creating some stronger
and more durable polymer clay pieces.
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Happy creating.
Bye bye.