A great use for your air-dry clay and your polymer clay rejects

A Simple Way to Reuse Old Polymer Clay Pieces with Air-Dry Clay
Sometimes polymer clay pieces don’t turn out the way we hoped. It happens. I’ve got a small pile of them myself—things I thought I’d love, but they ended up sitting in a box instead.

I recently found a way to give those pieces a second chance using air-dry clay. It’s simple and doesn’t require rebaking.
Here’s what I did:

1. Rough up the surface.
   Just scratch the top of the polymer piece a bit so the air-dry clay has something to grip.
   
   
2. Add a thin layer of air-dry clay.
   Roll it out, then press it onto the surface. Smooth it down and let it dry. I left mine for a couple of days—longer drying time makes it a bit tougher.
   
   
3. Finish however you like.
   Once it’s dry, you can paint it, scratch into it, use PanPastels, or even sand it back like I did. The surface on mine ended up really smooth.
   That’s it. A great way to upcycle something you didn’t like into something you love. 
   Find our Sculpey Air Dry clay here. If you’re curious as to what Canvas Fragment CaBezel shape I used it’s called Slate. 
4. Seal it the way you would with any air-dry clay piece.

Here is the polymer clay piece that I wasn’t happy with.

After letting the air dry clay dry I added scratches and paint and began sanding it down

This is the final piece. In hindsight, perhaps I shouldn’t have sanded so much. I can always add more paint!