Cernit and Premo (keep reading, there are pictures)

First I want to apologize to all the folks that participated in my initial polymer clay demos. I had a bunch of Sculpey III that needed to be used, so we used it to do transfers, as well as other clay techniques. When I do the next class, I will insist on everyone buying at least one block of Premo Premium Clay. It is soooooo much better than Sculpey III. It's easy to condition. It doesn't get squishy from the heat of your hands, and it is so much more stable for doing cane work.

In fact, I think that Sculpey III should be discontinued completely. You might say but, "it's great for kids to learn on", and you would be right to a certain extent. But...say your child, a budding artist, spends several hours sculpting and choosing colors and making something really special. You bake it and it looks so good, but someone knocks it off the table and it breaks. It's not fair. Children deserve good products, too. I know from reading other blogs, that I am not the only one that feels this way. If the company did away with the Sculpey III, they could concentrate on the Premo and even bring the cost down some. It's not that much more to begin with, anyway. My point being this, had I known how much more stable, and how much stronger Premo is, I would have been purchasing it all along. Thanks for listening to that rant.

Now, on to Cernit...

You remember when Garth and Wayne would bow down and say, "I'm not worthy...", that's how much better Cernit is than Sculpey III. It's even a step up from Premo. I always thought Cernit was for professional doll artists only. Not so. I got some when in Cali (I can't find any locally) and I am so pleased with it. It also is easily conditioned, by hand or pasta machine, with little to no crumbling. The colors are great. I am working with the black that has silver particles in it, that gives it such a rich look that you really have to pinch yourself, man this stuff is fabulous.

Here is a picture of the front of a free-form heart pendant. I textured it with a toothbrush and after baking/curing it, I painted it with el-cheapo red craft paint and when that was completely dry, I sanded it off and added some gold accents, from a Jellyroll pen. Now who among us, doesn't have craft paint and a glittery pen? You already have two of the three things needed for this pendant.


This is so cute, no picture could do it justice. Here is a shot of the back.


You can see that I made little loops from the clay, in which to run the cord through. I signed it after baking, but I have found out that with the gel pen, it works better to sign it before baking.

I like it so much I have already made three more, that I will distress in different colors. I am calling them "Distressed Hearts". I might even try to sell some on eBay. I never had much luck selling on Etsy, so maybe (even with the changes to eBay) these will sell.

I'll be posting other new projects as I go along, but I really do want to mention again, that if you want to do serious claying and you get frustrated when your work doesn't look at professional as you would like, it's probably the clay...not you... so don't give up, just get different clay. You are only as good as your tools... and clay is most definitely a tool that should not be skimped on.

Take care and please have fun. Life is too short to stress out all the time.