Work surfaces

I had been using a piece of tile to work my projects on, which served me quite well as it can be put into an oven together with the object without the need to transfer and thus risking to distort my figures. But ever since I moved, I left my old tiles at the old place and came here to find my scrap tiles are all of irregular surfaces. ):

So I had been working on a sheet of plastic wrapper pasted on my table all these while, like this;

While the plastic tears easily especially when cutting/slicing, the plastic sheet also tend to move/fold around when I rolled my clay pieces. So I went to Art Friend @ The Curve to look for surfaces to work on. Few choices I found to be rather useful - glass (RM 4.2 for a 15 x 15 cm piece), acrylic sheets, and finally polypropylene sheets. The glass is useful to directly build the pieces right on top and then send them all into the oven, but I did not purchase it as I have a specific aluminium baking tray for baking clay projects. 

Rummage... rummage... rummage... I finally found my work surfaces!

(To know which type of plastic material that can be used in contact with polymer clay, please refer to Garie's research with super detailed descriptions and photos.)

From the left: Acrylic sheet 2 mm, clear PP sheet .2 mm, and patterned PP sheet .3mm; all A3-sized.

The most useful work surface is the acrylic sheet (a.k.a. plexiglass) which was priced at RM 9.9 from Art Friend. It is rigid and clear, and I can easily slip a piece of paper with important measurements underneath to facilitate cutting/length estimation. Polypropylene (PP) sheets are much cheaper (RM 2 or less) to work on, however with only .2 mm thickness and the light-weighted property, fixation onto a table may be needed. Be careful if you are cutting the clay pieces here, as they can be cut through with a blade. While glass is more superior in this matter, the size offered was too small to make it worthwhile.

Update: Try checking out Ikea's glass shelf - Hemnes 44 x 30 cm for RM 10! Sounds like a better deal for this "off-label" use lol. 

Meanwhile... A curious cat decided to take a bite on the sharp edges.

So there you go, my updates on work surfaces. I still think tile is one of the best surfaces to have, but I also love the convenience of measuring my clay projects under the transparency of the acrylic sheet. I guess an A3-sized tempered glass surface would be my best bet to get the combined features huh? :P Which surface do you like to work polymer clay on? Let us know in the comment box below. Till then, have a blessed weekend and happy crafting. (:

Updates on Projects and Purchases

Good morning! Was busy but I managed to have some fun stuffs done in between my schedule. Let's get started.

Mini chocolate shaver, RM 2.5 from local baking supply shop

Found this cute chocolate shaver in a local supply store while buying some baking trays and the first thought coming to my mind was "this is definitely designed for miniatures" xD Well, it definitely can be used to shave some chocolate toppings on cakes, and in this case, the polymer clay miniature cakes.

Mini glass bottles and fitted corks, RM 8.8 for 10, off eBay.

Time for charm in a bottle! Been looking at ideas on bottled charms for some time and thought I could starting creating some really small charms in small bottles like this. Purchased these 24 x 11 mm glass bottles from China seller at a cheap price off eBay Malaysia and will be showing you the first (trial) bottled charm below.

Ta-Da! The first (but ugly) trial in making a bottled charm.

There you go! My first bottled charm made with a coconut tree on a small lonely island. The bottle was filled with glycerine and then sealed with glue. The glycerine distorted the coconut tree a little to look stumpier and shorter. I too have a problem making the sea look "right"; where I used translucent clay with a tinge of blue clay, but it did not look translucent at all... To be honest I had some difficulty sourcing resin... They are not cheap when it comes to EasyCast or similar things here (talking about something more than RM 50.0) in the local art supply stores. And beading.my has stopped selling epoxy resin ever since they fully converted their business to online store. If you guys have any idea where to buy epoxy resin at an affordable price, let me know!

Second master piece - bird in a bottle, diameter about 1 cm.
Reference here

A small teaser:

To be revealed. . . . . 

This would be a big one! :P I still need to make up some more detail and to add one more character into it to call it done. So stay tuned!