It’s always fun to try something new, particularly from a craft sense of the word. With a friend’s birthday coming up, I had some time and some motivation to have a go at a new medium: polymer clay.
Now, I’ve never used polymer clay before, but I did my research, watched a fair few YouTube videos, and figured I had enough knowledge behind me to complete this DIY. I decided to make a few simple polymer clay marbled DIY bowls. These bowls are pretty small, but they’re just the right size for jewellery, which I have a habit of leaving all over the house.
Here’s how you do it!
Making Marbled Polymer Clay Bowls
First, get your polymer clay together. You’ll want a few different colours of the same kind of hues. I’m a sucker for sea colours, so I picked a few shades of blue and some teal. I also added silver for effect, and some white. Now, with the white I used twice as much to make the marbling effect more pronounced.
Just slice or pull of sections of your polymer clay colours and roll them out into ‘snakes’. You’ll want to make them all about the same length. Just line them up as I have done below.
Pick up your ‘snakes’ and twist them together in your hand so that the strands become intertwined. Then lay this down on your work surface and roll out the twisted colours until the sides are smooth. Roll until this larger ‘snake’ is at least twice as long as the original, then fold in half and twist again. Repeat this a few times until you have a decent marbling effect. Be cautious of over twisting as this will result in mixed colours, instead of marbling.
Once you’re happy with the way your colours have combined, roll the polymer clay into a nice round ball. Pick a side that you feel has a nice pattern, and squash this down flat. You can use a rolling pin to roll the polymer clay out into a flat and reasonably circular shape, around 3-5mm in thickness. Pop this into an oven safe bowl, being careful not to press the clay hard into the side of the bowl. The bowl is really just there to shape the clay, so it’s more of a guide.
Bake this in the oven for the time specified on the brand of polymer clay you’re using. Remember, this stuff is hot plastic when it comes out of the oven, so don’t attempt to wrestle it out of the bowl! Just flip the bowl upside down on a cutting board and allow it to slip off in its own time.
I’ve made three bowls in the last few weeks, getting better at it every time. Of course, I’ve given all of them away as gifts, because that’s pretty much why I make things in the first place. For two of the bowls, a colour-matched pair, I actually sliced the sides of the bowl prior to baking to ensure they would be flat and even all the way around. I then painted this with gold acrylic, added some embellishments. They make great gifts, I’ll tell you that right now!
Have you made polymer clay bowls before?
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