Microwave Polymer Clay?

For the past few weeks, I’ve been working on air dry clay. While I love working with air dry clay, I find the clay gradually hardening over the time I was working. While I like that it is non-baked, I do get somewhat irritated because sometimes the clay had reached a kind of ‘hardness’ that was difficult to work with. Also, Sophie and Toffee’s air dry clay tends to be a little on the spongey side, and I sometimes find that little indents and details don’t quite show up as well as I like (have you tried pressing into a sponge? It sort of bounces back after a while.)

Still, I quite love the air dry clay because it is extremely light and has a lovely texture. Then again, I cannot quite comment because so far I’ve only worked with Daiso soft clay and Japanese fuwa fuwa clay.

After work yesterday, I decided to get myself a sample set of sculpey polymer clay to play with. I had recently read that a toaster oven will bake sculpey. I do have a toaster oven at home, but it lacks a thermometer. In other words, the toaster oven at home will heat up very quickly, and will also have a case of “inconsistent temperature”, since I can’t control how hot the toaster can get. In any case, I decided to try it.

I got a ceramic tile from Art Friend, and popped the tile into the toaster first while I worked on a quick shape. After that, in goes the clay. I baked it for a while — 10 minutes or so. After the time is up, I thought to leave the clay in there a little, since I thought it was still soft.

Big mistake.

The clay went from blue, to brown within a minute.

In went the next piece of clay after the oven had cooled down. This time, I took the clay out when the timer went off, and let it cool. While waiting, I decided to pull up a quick search and learnt that clay is most brittle when they are hot from the oven. After that, it will rapidly cool and harden.

Ok. Lesson learnt.

Then my cousin suggested that I could use microwave and water. Honestly, that was pretty new — I haven’t actually heard of that, but I thought why not? So I made a bead with some of the scrap clay and popped that into a tall container with water before putting that into them into the microwave on ‘high’ for 5 minutes. Throughout the entire time, I kept an eye on the water level, and when the time was out, I drained out the water. Bead was hard. That is pretty good news.

I would have continued my experiment but it was pretty late by then. So, I guess that is going to be on my to do list this week — to try clay and microwave (with water of course!). I haven’t, however, heard of many people doing this — since there is this huge clay void on this topic (most searches tell me NOT to microwave polymer clay) so if anyone knows the science of it, I’ll be glad to know! 🙂

We don’t have to listen.

I didn’t think that I would end up crafting.

To be honest, my whole childhood and the early years were pretty… boring. I was always told by adults around me that crafting was a waste of time, and that I should pursue more bookish pursuits. And being the child I was, I listened. And did everything I could to make the adults happy.

Sometime growing up, I began to find myself interested in the performing arts. I started doing theatre performances, while pursuing an undergraduate studies in education. Of course, we had to pick our majors while in school so theatre it was. That was the beginning of a beautiful relationship with my creative self. I felt alive. Something had broken free.

I never looked back.

Some time this year, I was approached by my school to create an original performance for a school event. This would be my second year doing it. As usual, there is very little school budget for us to work with. With almost zero budget and a pretty ambitious dream, I would have to DIY a lot of things.

It was during the DIY process that I discovered something else… that sewing was something I enjoyed and there was so much joy in seeing the beautiful transformation of a piece of craft material into something I envisioned. I was hooked. From sewing, I discovered other crafting hobbies — resin was one of them. A part of me really wish I had found this love earlier. At 30, picking up a new hobby and trying to juggle my time is pure madness. Work, part-time studies, work, family… it was certainly hard to dedicate time to everything. But I see crafting processes and products the same way I se my theatre processes and performances — that each moment is a gift, and that it must be preserved and shared.

I’m really grateful for my boyfriend, who encourages me to craft and create — small whimsical things and little requests. He keeps me challenged, and constantly shows everyone around him my little creations. In a way, that spurs me on too… other than the fact that I need this hobby to keep myself sane amidst all the madness.

On a completely different note, I would never tell my child (if I ever have one) not to stop dreaming and believing. Dreams need to be fed; but more importantly, dreams need to be dreamt because they give us a freedom and pursuit away from just material gain and success.