Sculpey Necklace

It's that time of the year again!  Summer!  And that means it's Anime Convention Season!  For most costume-wearing convention attendees, (we prefer the term "otaku" which is Japanese for "obsessive nerd")  this means sitting down at sewing machines and whipping up something awesome to wear.

But sometimes, it means busting out the clay.


My sister asked me to make a necklace for her as part of a costume.  It looks like this.



(Don't ask me what the Japanese says, because I don't know.  For all I know, it says, "News Flash: Ramen is yummy.")  The necklace belongs to a character named Anko from the anime Naruto: Shippuden  (I don't know what "Shippuden" means either, but I think it's something like, "The characters are older than the were in the original series, and so the hero is slightly less annoying, but only slightly.")  (Just kidding.  I looked it up just now out of curiosity and it means "Hurricane Chronicles."  Maybe that's how Anko got wet in that picture.  Maybe I should actually now something about a show before I start rambling about it.)  I'm not entirely sure what the necklace is exactly, if it's a fang set into something, or if it's all carved out of wood, or what.  But that doesn't really matter because, in the end, it got made out of this wonderful stuff called Sculpey Clay.



I couldn't find a cord in the right color, and I think my fang-thing is a little bigger than the original, but it's the best I could do.  I'm pretty happy with it.  The clay is originally white, and I painted it with acrylics.

Now Sculpey is just about a miracle from heaven as far as I'm concerned.  It's clay that never dries out and that bakes in the oven rather than a kiln.  If it weren't for this stuff I wouldn't be able to use clay at all.  You can pick it up at Wal-Mart, too, so geez louise, how much more convenient can the stuff get?

On the down side, thin areas are rather weak, and I've had sculpey break on me frequently.  Super Glue doesn't hold for long, and I've yet to figure out what kind of glue really works.  (I've heard Gorilla Glue.  I'll have to try it.)  I've a small cat that, I'm afraid, is rather permanently tail-less because of this.

I did learn just recently, however, that there are different types of sculpey clay: the original, which I have; Sculpey Light, which is slightly stronger, much more light weight, and feels marshmellowy before baking; and Sculpey III, which comes in smaller amounts of various colors, and works like the original only slightly stronger.  I may try out the Sculpey III stuff and see how it goes, except that I really like that the original comes in white so that I can paint it easily.  I'm not fond of the idea of my clay coming pre-colored.  That takes the fun out it.  Also, I still have half a block of the original stuff to get through, so it'll probably be a while before I try out anything else.


Warning: Technical Content.
For the record, the technical term for that kind of clay is, I beleive, polymer clay.  Sculpey is the brand name.  Also, there are a plethora of other polymer clays besides Sculpey, but you're not likely to find them except in a hard core craft store or online

I have a couple small sewing projects in the works, so hopefully I can post about those next week.  One of the things I like about having a blog is that it adds a little extra motivation to finish my projects so that I can post about them.  And one is almost done and the other shouldn't take long at all, so yay!