I had an opportunity to teach polymer clay at Frost Valley this summer at Family camp.
This is the last week of the summer and not only children, but adults attend the week long camp as family units.
So they are not specifically looking to do Polymer, but something "Japanese" with our Tokyo group at Frost Valley.
https://frostvalley.org/group-and-family-retreats/families/family-camps/summer-family-camp/japanese-culture-sharing-night/
With that in mind, I had to come up with a plan that's for beginners to polymer with a Japanese twist.
I started by collecting lots of Japanese or asian themed stamps. Ebay was great. but I already had a good collection anyway. Of course Christi Friesen and Lisa Pavelka stamps are always the best.
The problem was that no one will have any equipments. I have to supply them all. Pasta machines are to expensive to buy for everyone. I only had 2 and if we started conditioning clay during the workshop, I was afraid we would run out of time.
So I've conditioned the clay the night before. And gave everyone balled up clay that's already to go. All they had to do was flatten it out with their hands or sticks or glass bottles and stamp them. You can leave it as is or cut it out with cutters, make a hole and it's ready to be baked.
While baking, I've supplied them with already made beads so they can practice coloring with alcohol ink, and then think about how to connect all the beads you would have at the end.
30min would pass pretty quickly and you have your beads baked in no time.
Once colored, they can glaze it with Kato clear liquid clay, dry it with heat gun to make it shine and it's ready to assemble.
