Tweaking Polymer Clay Recipes Leads To An Endless Supply of Colors

Polymer Clay Tutor Recipe Card

Don’t Limit Yourself to Just the Pre-Packaged Premo, Sculpey, Fimo Colors… There Is So Much More:

Most people would agree that having lots of food recipes on hand, really helps in coming up with creative meals. As you gain confidence, you learn to adjust those recipes to suite your taste. The same is true for polymer clay color mixing recipes. The more options you have for different color variations, the more creative your beads and jewelry will be.

And just like with cooking, as you become more experienced, you can ‘tweak’ those color recipes to suit the projects you are working with.

For example, you may take the color recipe of Fern Leaf Green and add 1 part metallic gold to the mix. Making it a brighter Yellow Green with a metallic glint.

Or you may take the recipe for Rich Purple and add a pinch of Black to it, to make it darker and more dusty. Once you have a color that works you can experiment with it and create even more colors.

Anyone who has been following this site for awhile and who is also a charter member of the Polymer Clay Library, knows how valuable it is to have a growing collection of polymer clay color recipes at your fingertips.

Love this idea about the recipe cards. Hugz Cindy. ~Pamela

The recipe cards are so nice as well. I am a painter and didn’t think that I would need the recipe cards because I am so used to mixing paint colors together…well…I LOVE THE RECIPE CARDS!!! You have shown me that there are sooooooo many different colors that I can make from my clay! So many different greens, blues, reds, purples, yellows, and even metallic colors and different natural “white” colors. Thank you so much! ~CindyE

I love the recipe cards and how you set them up to print and make your own set, very good idea. ~Sandra

Amazing colors Cindy! I once made a beaded necklace for a color challenge where I used purple and yellow. I would have never thought of those two colors together, but they sure look good together, needless to say I was very happy with the outcome. Looking forward to the new recipes. ~Lupe

Can you say MUD!! I have had my fair share of mixing the wrong colors together. I never had a course in color theory but learned pretty quickly when I didn’t get the results I wanted. Thanks to your “recipes” I’m doing a lot better! ~Katrina

If you are receiving the weekly recipes in the Paid Library, as well as the Free Bonus Recipes by subscribing to my Polymer Clay Tutor Guest List, your color recipe resource box will fill up pretty fast. In fact, to date there are a total of 64 recipe cards just waiting to be collected. You can see the full list here: Polymer Clay Color Recipes Index

If you are wondering where I get the inspiration for a lot of my color recipes, here’s one story you can read: Color Inspiration for Polymer Clay Jewelry From the Crocosmia Flower

Got any color inspiration stories of your own to share? I’d love to hear them.

Cindy Lietz SignaturePolymer Clay Tutor


  1. Cindy Lietz, 08 December, 2008

    Just think if you continue on collecting these color recipes, in a year or two from now you will have hundreds of them to draw inspiration from. And with the little spot on the cards for the sample chip, you’ll always know which color recipes will go together. Very valuable when you are making up a new color palette!

  2. Anna Sabina, 08 February, 2009

    I am having a lot of trouble getting both weekly recipes. I can’t get the bonus recipes.

  3. Cindy Lietz, 08 February, 2009

    Hi Anna – If you follow the ‘Polymer Clay Photo Transfers’ link by my name above, you will arrive at a comment I made to another reader about how the bonus recipes work. Hope this helps.

Copyright © Polymer Clay Tutor Bead and Jewelry Making Tutorials