July Tip: Baking Delight Clay n a Low Temp Oven Yields Surprising Results!!

 
While preparing for my last tutorial I decided to work with the Delight Clay.  As most of you know in my "normal" design life I work primarily with polymer clay,  a medium that must be baked in a low temp oven (275 degrees) to cure.  So many times while designing (even with an air dry product such as Creative Paperclay or Delight Air Dry Modeling Compound) I will pop things into the oven.

For my tutorial, I created multiple flat white flowers.  I was a bit crunched for time, so I decided to put them into the oven to speed the drying process.  Imagine my surprise when I opened the oven after 10 minutes and found not flat flower components, but fabulous puffed flowers!  How cool was that?!

I thought they might flatten back out as they cool, but all maintained the puffed shape.  2 things to note about this discovery:
1) If you are going to try this be sure to place your flat components on glass to bake.  If using cardboard or an otherwise porous surface the Delight will bond with the baking surface!!  My components stuck even stuck to the glass surface I was using, but I believe that was because it had a slight texture leftover from previous bakings.  I was able to use a straight blade to slice all of the flowers off the surface.
2) If you predrill holes in your flowers before baking, there is a chance they will close up.  Never fear, they can be redrilled after the components cool. 

Have fun experimenting.  You will be amazed at how lightweight the components are!  Light enough to be strung on shear ribbons and worn as a belt without being weighed down :-)