Polymer Clay Paintbrush Pen and Palette - Kids' Art Class

Just too cute for words!  The "brushes" are pens. This is an idea I saw on Pinterest (where else?) and had to do it with my class.  It was so fun. The kids loved it, and they turned out so well.

Polymer Clay Pens - Kids Art Class

I got the idea to make these clay pens from YouTube video tutorials.  I used bic round stick pens (apparently they won't melt like other pens). Remove the ink cartridge from the tip of the pen before baking!  The ice cream pens baked for 40 min. and the regular cane covered pens baked for 15 min. At 275 degrees. I won't give detailed instructions here since others have already posted great videos that will be easier to follow.  The kids had so much fun with their ice cream "flavors".  We used colored glass beads for the sprinkles.  And when the ink runs out they can just replace them with another ink cartridge. 

Polymer Clay Covered Vases - Summer Art Camp 2013

This was probably my favorite project of the week. The kids each made two polymer clay "canes" (a bullseye and a spiral) which were then cut into slices.  Then starting at the bottom of the vase they stacked the cane slices onto the glass to cover it. We finished by pressing the canes flat with an acrylic rolling pin.

I baked them in a glass casserole dish loosely covered with foil. I started out by placing the dish in a cold oven and then set the temp for 265 degrees (we used skulpey and fimo). This way the glass would slowly heat up and would not crack from quick temperature change. I cooked them for 20 min and then shut off the oven and left them inside until cool.  The following day I varnished them to seal and give some shine.

Clay Creations - Kid's Art Class

Here are some of the fun polymer clay creations that my classes made a couple of weeks ago.  I printed off some cute ideas that I found on Pinterest and let the kids decide what they wanted to make.  You can see there was a lot of variety!  The robots are some of my favorites.  I made the wire coils for the arms, legs & necks with floral wire that I wrapped around a piece of clothing hanger wire.  It worked great, and the coils were much stronger than I thought they would be (since the floral wire is so thin).

 You can check out the gorgeous clay creations of HerArtSheLoves that inspired our robots below.