Ask Eugena - Polymer Clay Help

Every so often I get questions about polymer clay from my students or simply from people who found one of my web sites.  As I was responding to one of the recent e-mails, I thought it may be useful to publish some of my questions and answers here.  I hope someone will find this information useful.

So, here is an excerpt from an e-mail I received from Cynthia W.: "I have a lot of problems doing sculpey clay...I am just a beginner, but end up with rubbery, bendy beads or pendants...or the bead holes chip away when I add a wire...i do want to learn this but am having trouble...already threw away a lot of stuff."

This is what I wrote to Cynthia (among other things):

Sculpey is one of the softest and most brittle clays, so it may not work well for pendants - it is good only for small sculptures and for round beads.

Also, if your clay ends up too rubbery, you may not be baking it properly (not enough time or the temperature is too low).  You may find more about baking your polymer clay items here in my tutorial How to Bake Finished Polymer Clay Items.