Today, I’m taking it back to basics by bringing you a tutorial you can apply to any polymer clay project. Instead of showing you how to make a specific item, today I want to share how I’ve learned to fix cracks or gouges in polymer clay.

Sometimes things happen in the oven, and your beautiful polymer clay piece develops a crack. Or, if you’re supporting your piece with a chunk of aluminum foil, it may leave an imprint in the clay after it’s baked. As long as you’re not using a complicated pattern in your clay (like mokune game or cane work—this method is more suited for areas of solid color, maybe a gradient if you’re patient enough), I can show you how to fix it!

Supplies:

• Your polymer clay piece
• Unbaked clay in the same color as your piece
• TLS
• Blending tool
• 200 grit wet/dry sandpaper (optional, and only use if you glaze your finished piece; polymer clay should be wet sanded so it doesn’t kick up loose powder)

Step 1: Prepare the area

Step 2: Add your clay

To have the best chance of blending the baked and unbaked clays together and look seamless, I’ve found that the best thing to do is to only add a tiny bit of clay to the area needing fixing. If it’s a crack, take a tiny piece of clay and roll it into a thin snake, placing it over the crack. If you have a chunk like I do, take a ball that will just fill that chunk and push it in there.

Step 3: Blend, blend, blend

I think it’s easy to skimp on the love this step deserves. This is the step where the magic happens. Using your blending tool, start blending out the edges of the unbaked clay, keeping a light hand. If you push too hard with the tool, you’ll probably start tearing apart the clay. Have no fear! You can just keep blending it out. You’ll get a feel for the optimal pressure.

Once you start blending up onto the baked clay, you’ll notice it will start tearing up too. Just blend it out the best you can, going around all of the edges and pulling the unbaked clay out from the center.

When you have a fairly even surface, use your finger to lightly blend everything together. While the tool helps get the clay rearranged (and you could do that part without the tool), it’s using your hands at the end to really help get everything seamless.

Keep going through this process until you’re satisfied with the edges where the baked and unbaked clays meet. From here, your piece is ready to be baked again!

Step 4: Sand the area (optional)

If, once your piece is baked, you see the fix is not as smooth as you would like, you can also wet sand your piece to help smooth out the two surfaces.

Please note: it is recommended you wet sand polymer clay as this helps keep the dust from getting into the air for you to breathe in. You should probably use some kind of mask/respirator mask while doing this just in case.

I also wouldn’t recommend sanding your piece unless you plan on glazing it. Sandpaper scratches the surface of the polymer clay, and it shows as a color change (the sanded area is lighter). Glazing the pieces restores the clay so it looks like the rest of the piece.

There are ways to buff out clay to be a super high shine and smooth with sandpaper and other materials, but I have not gotten the hang of this. Honestly, I almost always glaze my pieces anyway, and the sandpaper doesn’t scratch so much that it leaves noticeable grooves when I run my fingers over it, so I haven’t needed to perfect a buffing technique.

Before and After

Now that everything is fixed, here is a comparison!

The after was unbaked clay. Here is what everything looked like once it was baked:

Something like this cannot be sanded after baking because of the powders added on top of the clay. I would end up sanding off the powders to smooth the area, so I had to make sure that everything was blended exactly as I wanted it before baking.