My craft room is still a disaster. I go quite crazy because it seems like every time I make one step forward, I end up two steps back! A few minutes ago I literally had to climb into the room to get to what I needed. But I still keep chugging forward hoping one day to have an awesome place to create in. One of the ways I keep tackling the “craft disaster” is with the monthly Craft Room Destash Challenge. This month I didn’t exactly create a complete project. However, I have taken a huge step forward in taming the overflowing drawers holding our polymer clay. I thought I’d share how we made lots of new colors from all the scraps. Now we will be ready to do some new projects with the clay because we have new colors of polymer clay to play with!
Polymer Clay
Long ago I used to do a lot with polymer clay. Then, a few years back, the kids became interested in creating things out of clay. Add in my tendency to try not to be wasteful with craft materials, and, well, I ended up with this:
This bin of scraps was great initially. Tasha got very into making little sculptures and often used her own money or asked for new clay for her birthday. Of course, that meant she didn’t want her little brother using all her clay up.
I can’t say I blame her. O-Man really just likes to play with the clay. Run it through the “pasta machine” and mix it together until it’s a terrible color and we don’t know what he’s trying to make.
This bin saved tons of arguments. O-Man could do anything he wanted with anything in the bin.
He’s gotten older now and much better at using the clay and not just turning it into unappealing shades of brown.
With the kids’ help, I started making little piles of shade groups.
If the scrap was predominately one color of the rainbow, it went into that pile. When the pile was a decent size, we would roll it into a ball and squish it around to mix it together some.
Then, we started running the scrap pile through the pasta machine.
After several turns through the machine, we had several new colors of clay.
The colors are definitely more muted than the bright shades I tend to buy new. However, I’m now a lot more inspired to use the clay! Even though we have lots of new clay, the bin brimming with scraps was a constant distraction for me. I felt like it was a waste and needed to find something to do with it!
We made it through about half of the bin. O-Man loves cranking the pasta machine so I’ll probably have him finish the bin before we get into a new project.
I know this isn’t much of an example of a project or tutorial, but, it really has helped me consolidate the clay in less space and feels like we can actually start to do some new projects soon. One of my goals is to cover all of my old crochet hooks with new custom handles!
If you’ve never used polymer clay before, this is a great starter kit!
Craft Room Destash Challenge
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Every month a group of bloggers are challenged by C’mon Get Crafty to create a new craft or project from their own stash of goodies! Everyone is allowed a $10 allowance for necessities to complete their project, but the bulk of it must be created from their own stash of goodies. Check out some awesome creations you might be able to make from your own stash! #CraftRoomDestashChallenge
If you’d like to join in the Craft Room De-Stash Challenge, you can request to join our Facebook group here!
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