{"id":17346,"date":"2013-07-08T03:05:47","date_gmt":"2013-07-08T10:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/?p=17346"},"modified":"2013-06-18T18:32:43","modified_gmt":"2013-06-19T01:32:43","slug":"firm-up-soft-polymer-clay-by-leaching-out-placticizers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/firm-up-soft-polymer-clay-by-leaching-out-placticizers\/17346\/","title":{"rendered":"Firm Up Soft Polymer Clay by Leaching Out Placticizers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/?p=17346#video\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" style=\"margin: 0px; border: 0pt none;\" alt=\"Leaching Soft Polymer Clay\" src=\"http:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/images\/blog\/2013-07\/08-90399-leaching-soft-polymer-clay.jpg\" width=\"255\" height=\"146\" \/><\/a><strong><span style=\"font-size: large;\"><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Video #399:<\/span> When your clay is too soft, sticky or squishy&#8230; there are quick and easy ways to firm it up.<\/span><strong><span style=\"font-size: large;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #808080; font-size: large;\"><strong>Topics Covered In This Video:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">In a previous video not too long ago, I talked about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/buying-polymer-clay-tips-tricks\/17040\/\">buying fresh polymer clay<\/a>. Sometimes that means the clay is very soft and squishy, and may be difficult to work with for some polymer clay techniques, especially caning.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">In this video I will show you how you can remove the excess plasticizers and oils (leaching) making the clay much firmer.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Role out your soft squishy clay with your pasta machine to make a sheet.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Place the sheet of clay between two sheets of plain white office paper (no printing on it) and set on a non-porous surface for a day or so, for the excess oils to soak into the paper, making the clay firmer.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Don&#8217;t set your clay and paper onto a porous surface like a wood table or a stack of books&#8230; or they will get stained by the oils.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">I like to weight mine down with some ceramic tiles, to speed up the leaching process.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">For a faster way, roll out your sheet of soft clay and put it in between a folded piece of paper, and run it through the pasta machine (paper and all), to force the paper to soak up the oils more quickly. You may need a clay blade to scrape the clay off the paper, but you will find this quick method to be much faster than having to wait for a day or so for the leaching to happen on its own.<a name=\"video\"><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4Z9PmYdNX9c?rel=0\" height=\"323\" width=\"575\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<strong><span style=\"font-size: large; color: #808080;\">Question of the Day:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"color: #993300;\">Have you ever had a soft squishy block of polymer clay that you didn&#8217;t know what to do with? And do you think this tip would be helpful for you?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">I look forward to hearing from you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">By the way, if you have a polymer clay question or challenge you&#8217;d like me to address in an upcoming video, do post it in the comments below. I&#8217;d love to help you find quicker and easier ways to bring up the professionalism in your polymer clay art.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium; color: #808080;\">Oh and don&#8217;t forget to give these videos a<em> Thumbs Up<\/em> click at YouTube if you are enjoying them. The more <em>Likes<\/em> a video gets, the higher it rises in the searches. And that means even more people will be able to join in on this polymer clay journey of a lifetime.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Also, by subscribing to our YouTube Channel directly, you will receive notifications as soon as new videos are uploaded. To subscribe, click here&#8230;<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=4Z9PmYdNX9c\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"external external_icon\">Leaching Soft Polymer Clay<\/a><span style=\"color: #808080;\">. The Subscribe Button is right near the top of that YouTube page.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Looking forward to hearing from you!<\/span><\/p>\n<table style=\"width: 575px;\" border=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 200px;\"><\/td>\n<td align=\"right\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cindy Lietz Signature\" src=\"http:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/images\/blog\/cindy-sig.jpg\" width=\"114\" height=\"99\" align=\"right\" border=\"0\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Polymer Clay Tutor\" src=\"http:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/images\/blog\/polymer-clay-tutor.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"26\" align=\"right\" border=\"0\" \/><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Video #399: When your clay is too soft, sticky or squishy&#8230; there are quick and easy ways to firm it up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2662],"tags":[2726],"class_list":["post-17346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pct-studio-tips","tag-conditioning-polymer-clay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}