Clay-ke It to the Limit

MLC’s Craft Club had its sixth meeting in February. We tested MLC’s polymer clay kit and let out our inner sculptors. Attendees had the option to create earrings or design their own sculptures. The earrings didn’t work quite as planned: MLC’s main meeting room was in the middle of a technology makeover and we couldn't use the projection equipment. It is much easier to have people create something with an example, so most of the attendees chose to make their own sculptures. They turned out great!

I have been making my own polymer clay earrings at home. I used this video from Creativebug to get started, as well as checking out designs on Pinterest. These are trendy right now, so an earring-making program would be a good way to encourage teens in your community to visit the library. I also found this video helpful; I was able to recreate the watercolor look of the hair clips as earrings. Allowing for free sculpting or directing patrons to sculpt a certain animal or shape based on a holiday (like Valentine’s Day) allows patrons to show off their creativity and is less hands-on work for the librarian. Polymer clay sculptures could be a fun take-and-make program to center around holidays or themes.

While the clay program was a big hit, we thought of a few suggestions for adapting the program for public libraries to make it even better. Having the clay blocks unwrapped and portioned out is a good way to keep clay from being wasted. If you are directing patrons to create a specific item or type of project, it is helpful to have a finished example. If I were to do this program again, I would bring earrings that I had made and/or have some photos pulled up from Creativebug or Pinterest. Also, if you are baking the creations in the library, make sure to put some tin foil over your pan so the clay doesn’t touch it directly. You can use ceramic tiles, available at home improvement stores, to use as a work surface and to bake your creations.

After this post, look out for more feedback and recommendations for MLC’s kits and programming ideas under Craft Club’s new name: Test Lab! We feel that this name change more accurately reflects the spirit of Craft Club and allows us to try out and report back about a variety of our other kits.

Polymer Clay Kit contains:

• Sculpey Premo Polymer Clay (while supplies last)
• Clay Tool Set (11 pieces)
• Texture Rollers (2 pieces)
• Clay Cutters (19 pieces)
• Clay Texture Sheets (3 pieces)
• Clay Gun (20 pieces)
• Sculpey Oven-Bake Clay Adhesive (while supplies last)
• Bead Landing Assorted Finding Kit for earrings (while supplies last) 

Learn more about our craft kits here and look for the polymer clay kit, coming soon!

Alex Brower

Information Services Director