Comments on: 5 Creative Tips For Using Acrylic Craft Paints with Polymer Clay

By: Phaedrakat

Phaedrakat — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:20:42 +0000

For Kawaii, think “Hello Kitty!” ;D

By: Cindy Lietz@Willow's Green Penguin Charm Stolen

Cindy Lietz@Willow's Green Penguin Charm Stolen — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 00:44:59 +0000

@Kitty H: Elaine has some excellent ideas for you Kitty! You can also use alcohol inks or tiny amounts of oil paint to tint your clay. Another option is to make your cute little charms all white and then paint them after baking, with acrylic paints. Have fun! @Elaine Faulks: Thanks for helping out Kitty like that! From what I have read, Kawaii means 'cute' in Japanese. It is a style of little sculpted charms that originated in Japan. They are usually regular house hold things with cute little faces painted on them. Things like a piece of toast with a face or a pencil with a face, etc. It is really popular with young people all over the world. My daughter's penguin charm would almost qualify as Kawaii, but it isn't quite animated enough. If you want to read a cute little story about the Green Penguin Charm Willow made years ago and how it got stolen, click the link by my name.

By: Elaine Faulks

Elaine Faulks — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 19:42:31 +0000

Hi Kitty H, if you have a Walmart near you, you are laughing. Just go to the kiddie section and buy a small box of kiddies wax crayons, really cheap. You have to shave off a few skinny slivers of any colour and squish, mix, twist, pound, blend until it is mixed in. Red crayon will give you lovely shades of pink, add some yellow slivers of wax and experiment. At one time I thought I would just buy white, but you only really get soft shades with this method. You can also use old dry powder eye-shadow, spices from the kitchen ie: turmeric…lovely yellow, paprika gives an incredible shade of pale orange.There are about 101 different things you can add to white clay to get amazing colours. But remember, tiny amounts of clay with even tinier amounts of additions, that way you can do test pieces….and make notes of ones you like.

What are KAWAII charms? They sound very exotic. Did you know that if you scroll to top of page there is a search button. Just type in “How to add colour to white clay” and I am sure there will be loads of answeres from other clayers who also have heaps of white clay. I have learnt such a lot from other members of this site (thanks everybody) Good luck with your experimentation, thats the fun of PC it is so forgiving!! But mainly have fun:}

By: Kitty H

Kitty H — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 17:51:30 +0000

I have SO MUCH WHITE CLAY!!! I want to make little kawaii charms but I don’t have any colors. I live in a small town and my only “supply” store for miles is a walmart. I’m not overflowing with Money either and I want to make little charms so bad!!! What do I do to color my white clay?

By: Trudy M

Trudy M — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 05:12:12 +0000

Thanks Jocelyn, I will try this.

By: Jocelyn

Jocelyn — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 15:06:18 +0000

@Trudy M: Wetting the sanding pad works great for me.

By: Trudy M

Trudy M — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 18:49:42 +0000

I learned the credo of experimentation from you, Ms. Cindy Lietz!! I was afraid to touch the clay for a while, and was amassing ridiculous amounts of clay and accessories until I really listened. I have the mat you recommended, the sanding pads, the fishing tackle box. You suggest it, I buy it. But I had to listen to your words of wisdom about creativity to really make things work.

That being said, I have no idea what brand the metallic watercolors are……I think I threw away the wrapping and there’s no brand name on the box. I will stop by the stationary store to look for it. I haven’t sealed them yet, so I’ll take your advice. I do have sculpey glaze, so I will try that and let you know. I have to sand the sides which are untouched and the back, but I think a dunk in water might kill the colors, so do you think I should just dampen the sanding pad and sand the untouched clay parts?

Thank you……I know I’ve been reading the blog more than writing, but I’m always around! Hugs.

By: Jocelyn

Jocelyn — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 07:43:37 +0000

Seems to me I have this dim memory of my Mom and Godmother feverously working on Christmas crafts at Dad’s workbench, and I remember she got this great crackle using latex paint and then applying layers of cheap hair spray. No lie! LOL.

By: Cindy Lietz@PYMII - Craft Spray Fixative

Cindy Lietz@PYMII - Craft Spray Fixative — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 00:26:22 +0000

@Trudy M: I loved how you said,”Glad I follow the credo of experimentation”, Trudy! That is so important to understand. Although following the rules, does help to lessen the number of mistakes, breaking them leads to new cool ideas! Without experimentation, everything stays the same and gets very stale. Thank you so much for coming back and sharing your experiments with us! Everyone benefits from that knowledge.

So did you seal the watercolors with anything? My thoughts are that the reason people say not to use them on polymer clay, is that they do not have many binders in them and may not adhere to a non porous surface like the clay well over time. A sealer like Sculpey Glaze, UV Resin or PYMII might be a great choice to make them more durable.

The metallic paints that you used may be somewhat different than regular water colors though. What brand are they? Are they an acrylic based water color? These would be cool things to know.

By: Trudy M

Trudy M — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 12:12:39 +0000

I tried watercolors a few weeks ago and had an interesting surprise. It came out well, looking like shell. I had metallic watercolors and painted my favorite sunset colors on raw translucent and then baked as always and it has a wonderful, shiny, pale and soft shimmer to it. Most folks writing about polymer clay say that water colors don’t work on the clay. Glad I follow the credo of experimentation.