Creating a polymer clay slab is a simple way to get a unique polymer clay earring design without having to create your earrings one by one! Creating a clay slab allows you to cut multiple earrings at one time, and create different styles of the same design. Let's create a polymer clay slab!
What You Need to Create a Polymer Clay Slab
These are the tools I typically use to create a polymer clay slab design,
- Polymer clay - I like to use Sculpey polymer clay, like this
- Clay pasta roller - like this one
- Different polymer clay tools to accomplish your design
- Tile for rolling out and baking polymer clay - Large Tile - Small Tile
What Is a Polymer Clay Slab
A clay slab is often a flat piece of polymer clay for the background color and then layered with more clay to create a patterned design with clay and textures.
Here is a simple (and mini) polymer clay slab I created for the famous Cherry season in Door County Wisconsin! 🍒
Finding Inspiration for your Clay Slab Design
You can create ANY clay slab design, but I find that it works best when you have some inspiration and a plan.
Here are some ways I like to find inspiration:
- Use Pinterest and Etsy to browse different digital files to get ideas for a pattern that will work well with clay
- Use popular items and themes from the current season (like I did with Cherries or Pine trees for Christmas, etc.)
- Follow home decor brands on social media to see which elements are trending
Finding inspiration will slowly become the easiest thing for you! If you find yourself having lots of ideas, try using a project management tool like Notion to help you track ideas versus specific tasks. I’d love to know your favorite ways to find and track inspiration? Let me know in the comments!!
Getting Started! Roll Out Your Initial Clay Slab
Each clay slab starts with an initial layer of clay. When I’m just starting I like to use a single color of clay, but you can get as crazy as your inspiration!
Use your clay pasta machine to roll out your clay. I typically use my largest thickness setting, at ~2.25 mm. (If you are using this
My pasta machine is only 5 ½” wide and I create small batches of earrings, so I don’t roll out a huge slab, I typically do 2 smaller slabs that fit on a 6”x6” tile. You will need to decide how many earrings you can get out of your clay slab, and then create a slab that is larger or a few smaller slabs like I typically do!
Once your clay is rolled out, take your acrylic clay roller, and roll the clay onto a tile surface (I use these tiles, Large Tile - Small Tile)
Add Clay Design To Create the Cuttable Slab
Once your clay is rolled out onto a tile surface, start to layer your clay design onto the slab.
Spacing Your Patterns
For pattern clay slabs, think about the spacing of the pattern. You want your spacing small enough so that it fits nicely into the clay cutters you will be using.
For example, in the cherries design, I wanted at least 1-3 cherries to fit onto an earring, and it was ok that others were cut off. In that case I got an idea for spacing by knowing which cutters I wanted to use ahead of time.
Add Texture To Your Pattern
To make your clay slab a little more interesting you can start with a texture on the clay slab. You can use a texture roller, a texture mat, or use clay to create additional texture!
For these earrings I used this clay texture mat to create an interesting pattern on the clay before creating earrings.
For these bookmarks which started out as clay slabs, I used clay tools to create texture with the extra punctured circles to add an interesting pattern.
Add Paint To Your Pattern
Another way to create a unique clay slab is to add to paint! You can add small details to the clay or you can use it to add interesting texture to the background. I like to use acrylic paint. Acrylic paint can be applied with a paint brush before you bake your clay slab, and acrylic paint pens can be used after you bake!
In this example, I used acrylic paint pens to add details to the ghosts and the background on the bookmarks after the bookmarks baked.
Testing and Batch-Working Your Clay Slabs
For pattern clay slabs, I like to complete a small section of the pattern first. This allows me to change directions if something is not working out. Once I like how this section looks, then I go back and work across the slab in batch work. For example, adding all cherries first, then going back and adding the stems, and then the leaves last, and then finally adding the textures if needed at the end.
Here is an example where I only created enough pattern for 2 earrings so that I could make sure the pattern worked with the size of earring cutter I wanted to use.
What to Create With Your Clay Slabs
Once your polymer clay slab is completed, you have to decide what to create!! (Or oops, maybe you should have thought of that first?? naahhh…)
I promise you, this is the saddest part of the process… The clay slab looks so perfect and patterned, it’s hard to cut it up, and often some of the slab gets wasted because it simply doesn’t fit perfectly into the cutter!
But, also satisfying seeing your clay slab turn into functional and beautiful earrings or hair clips!!
Here is some inspiration for what to create with your polymer clay slabs!
Clay Earrings of course!
Here is the finished result of the cherry polymer clay slab design,
Here is another example of a beautiful clay slab featuring birds and green leafs. Vian has a video tutorial you can watch for how to create this slab, watch here!
https://myvian.com/video-polymer-clay-birdie-earrings-slab-tutorial/
If you need help creating these leaves, use this polymer clay leaf cutter! Use a thing setting on your pasta roller, and then can create consistent sized clay leaves for your slabs.
Clay Hair Clips
Hair clips are the perfect accessory to create with a clay slab! Here is are some ideas for custom hair clips you can create. AND if you need clay hair clip cutters, checkout this clay hair clip cutter bundle
Hair Clips by Adorable Shabby Market on Pinterest and Etsy
Clay Bookmarks
Clay bookmarks are another great idea for creating with a clay slab! Checkout this blog for how to create simple clay bookmarks and for the clay bookmark cutter I use.
Clay Bookmarks by So Clay Jewelry on Etsy
Helpful Clay Slab Tools for Polymer Clay Makers
I hope this polymer clay slab tutorial gave you inspiration for how you can create and design your own clay slab! My Etsy shop has several polymer clay cutters made for polymer clay makers and to help further your creativity with polymer clay.
The clay cutters mentioned in this post,