How to: Make Clay Pins

What You'll Need:

-oven or toaster oven

-Polymer clay (Sculpey III recommended)

-something like a letter opener or paring knife

-small cookie cutters (optional)

-Paint (acrylic or gouache)

-Gold or other oil-based marker

or gold calligraphy ink & fountain pen or small paint brush

-uv resin (link below)

- 80watt uv nail lamp

-disposable gloves

-mask or respirator

-small, cheap/old paint brush

-rubbing alcohol (70% isopropyl alcohol)

-metal super glue

-pin backing

Making your own pin is super easy to do. The only thing is the resin is a little tricky to do. I would advise you to be at least 14 years old to use it because it is toxic and very bad if inhaled or if it contacted your skin. Shaping the Clay

To start, you're going to mold your polymer clay. Usually you have to knead it for it to soften. Sculpey III is recommended because it is the easiest to work with; and if you want to use a colored clay, the color doesn't shift very much after baking. After kneading, roll it into a 1 inch ball and flatten to about 1/4 an inch with a rolling pin (or you can use a marker or anything really). I have a special clay tool to cut out the shapes I want, but you can use something like a letter opener or paring knife to draw shapes to cut. You can also use small cookie cutters if you want round, square, oval, etc. pins. When you get it to the desired shape, you want to smooth the edges and fix any imperfections.

Baking the Clay When you're ready, follow the baking directions on the packaging for your clay. You're going to heat your oven or toaster oven and put your clay pins on a baking sheet.

Let the pins cool before painting.

gouache with ink acrylic with gold marker

Painting the Pins

Now that you're ready to paint them, consider what kind of look you want. Pictured first is with gouache, and this lets you swirl colors together with water on the pin to get a more multi-dimensional look. You do have to wait for it to dry though, which will take a little longer. Acrylic paint is good for a solid coat, but it does dry fairly fast. You'll have to do 2-3 coats for it to look even.

In the first picture, I used gold calligraphy ink and you can apply it with a fountain pen or small paint brush. The second photo, I used a gold oil-based paint marker. It was good for a few, but honestly it started spewing out way too much at some points and I stopped using it. If you don't need anything metallic, you can also go for other oil-based paint markers; Sharpie makes some good ones.

Coating with Resin

Again, working with resin is a little dangerous; just be careful. Also, please don't do this if you are under the age of 14. Put on your mask/respirator and gloves.

Idk a whole lot about resin, but this is what I was recommended. It definitely needs to be one that cures under UV light, cures clear, and is a hard type.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FPR3RNQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Before working with the resin, you'll want to put something disposable down on your work area. You can use newspaper, wax paper, parchment paper, etc. You really don't want to get resin stuck on your table, and you're going to want to throw this away when done. Again, resin is toxic and sticky.

Now, I used an old paint brush to apply the resin to the top and sides of the pin. You're going to need something for the pin to sit on that is slightly smaller than it; like a little stool. This is so you can apply the resin to all sides, and it won't let the resin harden the pin to the inside of your lamp. Honestly, one of those small 5 packs of gum like Spearmint or Juicy Fruit work perfectly for holding 1 inch pins.

You're going to put your pin and it's little stool under the uv lamp for 5 min, and it should be fully hardened. You can see in the photo, I put them on stools and put the stools on a thiccccc piece of paper to move them all into and out of the lamp at once. If you see you missed a spot; you can dab more resin on and put it back under the lamp.

It will still probably feel a little tacky; so just let it sit outside in the sun for 30 min or so and it should help because the sun emits uv light. So yes, you can do all this without the lamp; but the lamp is much quicker. Also if you did all the curing outside, you run the risk of dirt and other things blowing onto it and getting stuck in the resin.

I heard rubbing alcohol is supposed to remove resin from paint brushes, and that's what I used. It didn't work the greatest, but it definitely got the resin off the gloves I used. Idk.

Adding the Pin Back

Grab your super glue that is made for metal, and dab a bit on the pin backing and smush it onto the back of your pin. It's best to put it in the middle, and move it up a little bit, so it's less likely to turn. Or you can add 2 pins so it will always stay in one place.

Congrats, you're done!