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Does anyone know if you can just buy this stuff in white and colour it with some kind of food colouring or other type of colouring?

Not sure, but you can blend white Poly clay with colours to make the shades and colours you want..

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Nickie

Hmmmm, not quite as easy as adding your own colours though huh- I might buy some and have a go and see what happens! Thanks Gord!

Well, if you want to set the clay, you need suitable heat stable dyes.. I am guessing that as coloured clay doesnt stain and mak, something like food dye is not the thing to use. and you will need some form of pigment - powder probably.. that might not bond so well with the clay??

Knowing how craft stuff sucks you in with the £2.99 item that you end up spending £52.99 on.. I would wager that pigments cost £15.. slightly more than a few blocks of fimo! ))

It's not really the cost I'm concerned about gord, it's more getting the right shades and from the very quick look I had yesterday, there doesn't seem to be that many colours to choose from- unless, as you said, you mix them but it just seems a whole load of trial and error lol!

Got me curious so I have been having a browse.. cant find anything at all about adding pigment to polymer clays.. but plenty on how to blend clays.. most reccomend a complex regime of cutting and stacking, then rolling using an old pasta machine! - and it is all trial and error..

Coincidentally I looked up pigments and their uses, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigments and realised something which will be important to anyone hoping to take "white" clay and colour it.

White polymer clay has pigment in it (titanium or zinc it seems are the most common..), so no matter how much you blend, you will end up with a combination.. so unless the colour you want to achive is blendable from pigmeted clay, you will never get a true result unless you find unpigmented clay as a base!

You can get artists oil paint pigments - some still prefer to make their own rather than buy a branded paint so maybe you could get some pigments and have a plitter as my mother would have said!

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Nickie

The consistency of polymer clay is such that if you add a pigment from another medium it could affect the strength of the finished item. Which is why they recommend only blending polymer clay with polymer clay.

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Nickie

Thanks guys, you're stars! Looks like it's blending then lol! I never knew all that stuff about the pigments in polymer clay Gord so thanks. I just seen some gorgeous cake toppers and thought that since I used to do cake decorating- over 15 years ago now, I'd give them a go. They're quite complex however with lots of different shades etc so it' not going to be easy with having to blend to achieve the desired colours etc but it looks like I have no choice! I'd read somewhere about people making their own clay but I'm not sure if this'd be more trouble than it's worth! And thanks to Caroline too- I'm so glad you all know this kind of stuff, where would I be without you lol!

Hi Nickie

you can make a lot of colours by blending, There is a lady selling colour charts on Etsy and I have tried them unfortunatley I cannot give out the colour mix but it wasnt expensive and the colours matched perfect to the quantitys she gave

The chart gives so many more colours than you could imagine.

If you type in Desiree she gives great tips on polymer clay and I know a lot of people use alcohol inks to colour the clay.

There is so many possibilities and yes it is a lot of trial and error.

The basic colour mixes are the same as paint you have your primary colours ect but if you mix the wrong ones you end up with mud.

The best way to mix is with a pasta machine, it saves all the conditioning by hand.

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Nickie

Thanks Karen, I'll defo have a look for that colour chart on Etsy- I've still yet to try it, been mad busy lately but hopefully (like everything else), I'll get to have a go sooner rather than later!