Great Polymer Clay Supplies and Bead Making Tools from the Kitchen

5 Polymer Clay Tools You Probably Already Own But Hadn't Thought About:

There are plenty of unique options for polymer clay bead making tools and supplies. Some of the more creative ones come from the kitchen. But remember, once you've used kitchen utensils for polymer clay, they can't be used for meal preparation again. You don't want to contaminate your food with polymer clay or your clay with food!

1) Meat Tenderizer: The bumpy side of a meat tenderizer makes a very cool texture pattern on polymer clay. Use a spray of water or a dusting of cornstarch as a release agent. Try this for making geometric patterns on a block of Mokume Gane or on metallic clay for a mica shift technique!

2) Cheese Grater: You can grate up hard clay to make it easier to condition. Grate up super hard clay into fine particles for adding to other clays for faux stone effects like Faux Lapis Lazuli, Faux Rose Quartz and Faux Turquoise. You can even grate up baked clay to add to raw clay to make your own version of Granite.

3) Pizza Cutter: Even dull ones work great for cutting strips of polymer clay. Pastry cutters work the same way. The pastry cutters with the wavy blades are especially fun to play with.

4) Cheese Cloth: Stack four or five layers of cheese cloth about 6" square. Pile some cornstarch in the center and draw up sides of cloth to make a pouch. Tie off with string to 'lock' the cornstarch powder inside. This creates a great little pouncing bag to lightly and evenly dust cornstarch onto clay, rubber stamps, molds, etc. as a release agent.

5) Drinking Straw: Perfect for making nice clean holes in raw polymer clay for pendants and such. Dust the end with cornstarch and twist when removing from clay.

More "kitchen" ideas for polymer clay tools and materials stolen are discussed here: Polymer Clay Supplies from Unlikely Places

What are some of your favorite tools that you have stolen from the kitchen?