Color Recipes for Polymer Clay - Instructions and Tips

An Introduction to this Section of the Blog Including General Mixing Tips and Techniques for Polymer Clay:

In this section of the blog you will discover some great polymer clay color recipes I've come up with either through experimentation, through online research or as submitted by subscribers.

The recipes work by mixing equal sized parts of clay in the prescribed quantities. For a video tutorial on how to do this, click here: Mixing Polymer Clay Colors

Keep in mind the size of the cutter you use will determine the amount of clay you end up with. For example, if you are making lots of beads, you may want to use a larger cookie cutter to mix up a larger amount of that color. This also means of course that if you only need a small amount of a color, then use a smaller cutter.

In my recipes that suggest using a Trace amount, this means to just add a tiny, tiny amount of a color relative to the total amount mixed. It's obviously better to start with minuscule portions and then keep adding until the desired color is achieved… rather than adding too much right at the beginning.

As with any color mixing, there will always be slight differences from batch to batch. So if it is extremely important that the color be exact for all of the beads in a project you are doing, then for good measure mix up a little more than you think you might need. Personally I like variation and never really care if the color is exact. But I know that not everyone likes to be as random as me.

Each recipe I provide has the brand of clay listed that was used to make that particular color. Each clay company uses different pigments and color combinations. So if you want to substitute a different brand, you will have to make your best guess and then experiment to come up with your own recipe.

Cross brand substitutions of some colors like black, white, silver, and gold are pretty straight forward. But other colors such as red, green, blue, yellow, etc., are a little more complex and will require more fiddling.