Here’s an article called It’s OK to Sometimes Break the Rules, where they discuss the lengthened baking times, and the fact you can bake more than once.

This article, How To Bake Polymer Clay Properly, not only has great info, it has links to lots of baking articles. There’s a lot of reading here, important tips and tricks to help you with baking, such as using ceramic tiles, baking with cornstarch, tenting your beads/project, etc. It really helps to have as much information as possible when you’re baking your clay projects .

Here’s a response I left for someone who had burned her beads (from a too-hot oven.) In it, I describe why lengthy baking at a low temp is important. There are some informative comments from Cindy above this comment, as well as a link to yet another great article.

You mentioned that you’ve done several projects with Sculpey III clay (I think you meant that clay?) It’s actually considered one of the weaker clays, in case you didn’t know. Cindy wrote a post about it called Sculpey III Polymer Clay Really Makes Me Mad, which explains some of the reasoning. Plenty of polymer clay artists agree with this. Premo Sculpey, Fimo (or Fimo Soft), Studio by Sculpey, Kato, and Cernit clays are all really good-quality clays that are much stronger. You don’t want to put all that work into a project and then have it fall apart. You might want to consider buying a stronger clay for your next project. There are a few other things this site has to offer that you may want to consider. I’ve outlined them in the paragraph below; the links can be found at the top of each page.

Cindy has a weekly newsletter, with 2 free color recipes in it, if you’re interested. If you sign up, you get 3 free videos. The link is at the top of the page—Polymer Clay Newsletter. If you like the videos, you’ll probably want to become a part of the Member Video Library. It’s only $3.32 a month! You get 4 monthly videos, and an additional color palette of recipes (for a total of 12 recipes per month.) For less than $10, you get 12 video tutorials & 36 recipes! It’s an amazing deal. I always kick myself for not joining sooner. It’s something that you and your daughter could watch together. The projects are geared towards jewelry, but they can be used for any type of polymer clay project. Perhaps even the kind that will help you take home ribbons! To get an idea of the latest topics/tutorials, go to the Home page. It lists the daily blog posts in order by date. This Member Video Library link will show you a list of past video tutorials. If you like, there’s also a Polymer Clay Basics Course (fundamentals/beginner’s 39-video course.) It’s designed to teach you all about working with polymer clay, from choosing a clay, to conditioning, forming beads, baking, finishing, storing clay, etc. I highly recommend these videos! If you have trouble with any of these links, leave another comment or email Cindy directly to ask for help purchasing a membership or course. If you have any other questions, leave a comment, and someone will be happy to help. Have fun, and good luck with your “fantasy project”!

The way it works with Sculpey III is you need a minimum of 15-20 minutes per 1/4″ at the perfect curing temperature. Since ovens cycle, and the temp goes up and down, you have to bake longer to get a complete cure. Try to get your hands on thermometer if you can (I know you’ve got a deadline.) I’ll post again after this, with some links that have important information to read. Good luck with the project (I was in 4-H when I was a girl…)

I just found you on the web. I don’t know what kinds of questions you answer but I thought I would try. My daughter is making a sculpey clay project for a 4-H show on Saturday. We have done many projects with the sculpey clay with a lot of success. This year we bought the bake and bond glue for the first time. We baked the project for only 10 minutes because on average the thickness of the parts is less than 1/4″. It says not to over bake it. The glue did not cure. Also the whole scene is built on a piece of wood that is covered with the sculpey. The clay that is on the wood is not baked. Can I bake it longer? I thought of using a hairdryer to heat certain areas. Would that work? The scene my daughter made is a fantasy type of setting. A man cutting a very large mushroom with several pieces of grass coming up out of the wood as well as other smaller mushrooms,rocks, hills etc. She put wire and foil in the inside of everything so it would not be so think. The dimensions are about 8x7x8. If you can help that would be wonderful.

Thanks,
Carla

The clay I like to work with the most for all purposes is Premo Sculpey. If you want to learn more about how the clays compare click the link by my name to read another article. You can also type ‘clay comparison’ into the search box at the top of the page for even more info.

@Anna: That is a very good idea Anna! There may just be a great demand for them. I will tell Willow about your idea!