I have a few lightbulb ideas after I saw it on their website which I’ll post soon. I’ve been thinking about incorporating more light effects ever since I made my starlight rings that create glowing orbs. I’ve seen the lamps and center pieces done a few years ago but with sukerukun clay.

Enjoy the pics

I was gone for a while…. more like a month wow time passes by really fast. Im back now and regular blogging will be back on track now. I hope everybody had a great christmas and a fun time bringing in the new year.

So for the first post of the new year Im sharing a new product by decollage.

Clear Jelly Whipped Cream by Decollage

Im sure it will be just as expensive as the regular whipped cream. Im posting this because I wanted to let people know you can just by clear caulk at the hardware store to make this. Clear caulk still cost about 2 to 3 bucks vs the one by decollage which will probably cost about 10 bucks in japan and probably boosted to 16 bucks in the U.S. Just wanted to give a heads up. Enjoy the pics.

I figured it was finally time for me to test out fimo more since I usually mostly use sculpey III.

So far Im really liking fimo alot, now I wish I had bought more fimo for .99 cents since it regularly cost like almost 3 bucks a bar at my michaels. I was on a budget though and I didnt want to spend alot.

and here is something I was a bit shocked to see when comparing the black colors. The sculpey III Black is not really black its more like a grey color and fimo black is actually black. A few of fimo colors are alot more pigmented than sculpeys so those are the ones that I will buy instead of sculpey.

I also bought a bar of craftsmart clay which I think is the michaels brand of clay. It was the prettiest shade of purple out of all the brands. I could mix that color of course with the other brands but its nice to have it already premixed. I’ll review that brand later for strength and see how it holds up.

I always do a waterproof test out all the clays I use before I make jewelry. I want to make sure all my products are made out of materials that will not have a reaction that will ruin my customers clothes. Of course there are always unforseen circumstances but for 99% of the normal occurances I like to be sure everything will be okay with my creations.

So since I used ink, acrylic paint and oil paint to tint lumina I needed to make sure these items are really waterproof and the pigments wont leak out of the clay if they get wet. So I decided to do a 5 day test to see what would happen.

I took several pieces of tinted clay and I put them in a ziplock bag filled with water. Below is a picture of the pieces of clay before I put them in water

Within the hour lumina started to absorb the water and the colors of the clay started to turn white

The picture below shows you the different stages of water absorption and color difference

* The 2 on the left were initially the same color. The lighter of those two was the one that was in the water for 1 hour. The good news is within a few minutes it started to return to normal color.

UPDATE: I put that piece back in the bag with water for a full 24 hours and then removed it. By the end of the 24 hours it was almost white but I could still see the colors. After a full 5 days from removal of water it returned to its original color except it was about 1 shade lighter.

* The 2 pieces on the right are supposed to be the same color. The one in the bag remained in the water for a full 5 days. The results of that piece are further below so just keep reading to see what happened.

The pictures below will now show you how the clay looks after 5 days of being underwater

Here are my questions that I had and my findings of this experiment

Does the color change? Yes the color of lumina does change when totally underwater at around 1 hour it will turn white. If pieces are removed from water within 12 hours the clay will return to its original color. If pieces are left in water for at least 24 hours the clay will return to its original color but it will most likely be 1 shade lighter. This only applies to acrylic paint and ink tinted pieces. This does not happen with oil paint.

Do any of the pigment colors leak out of the clay and into the water? and how long did it take to leak into the water? This is one of the most important things I was looking to figure out. For the first 3 days I did not see any of the pigments leak out of the clay. This is great news because that means the pigments are really deep in the clay. I would say at day 5 there was a very very slight cloudiness in the water. I could not photograph the cloudiness because it was so slight on a level from 1 to 10 I would say the cloudiness was a 1. Im assuming it was most likely the ink and or the acrylic paint and not the oil paint.

Does the clay fall apart? Even at day 5 the clay does not fall apart. There was no residue on my hands. It did become really stretchy and flexible though.

Do layers of lumina clay seperate when wet? No they do not separate at all. This is great news because I made that strawberry cane and the layers stayed super tight to each other. I tried to stretch the layers apart and they would not separate so its really amazing that onced cured they really get stuck together. I think being sumerged under water helped fuse the layers together even better since the water is what helped them stick together in the first place.

This might actually be a good lumina clay cane technique. That if you let your lumina clay cane dry for at least a week and then leave it underwater for a few days it might help the layers fuse together better. Its a long process but hey at least now I now what creates a better lumina clay cane.

Does water absorption affect the translucent nature of the clay? Yes when underwater for at least an hour the translucency is no longer there. Once dry it totally returns to its original state.

Does water affect the flexibility of the clay? When underwater the clay is even more flexible. When you take it out of the water when its in the mid process of getting dry it can develop small cracks if you flex it at that stage. If you let it dry without flexing it it will just as flexible as when it was originally dry.

How long does it take for the color to return to the clay? It depends on how long it was underwater. If it was between 1 to 24 hours depending on the size of the clay from 30 minutes to a couple days.

What pigment type is the best to color lumina clay? I think oil paint is the best. I say this because the cloudiness in the water bag was a light color. The only light colors I used where light blue ink and light blue paint. So therefore that tells me thats what leaked out. The strawberry was tinted using oil paint. There was no red in the water so I think oil paint is the best to use.

Would I make jewelry with this clay? I absolutely would. The 24 hour test was all I really needed. The only times my jewelry would get wet would be is if it rains, if somebody spills water on them. If they jump in a pool or in the ocean or have a water fight. All those events would leave them in the water from seconds, minutes and at the most a few hours. That amount of time does not do any damage to lumina clay in color and it would not leak any color that would damage customers clothes. So I will use this clay to make my jewelry and Im very sure it will be perfectly fine.

After 5 days in the water did the pieces return to normal color? So far it seems like the oil paint returns to its original color without any distortion and no shade difference. The ink and the acrylic paint seem to not do well at 5 days and have turned pretty clear and the cloudiness was all the pigment that came out of the clay. It took very little ink and paint to tint them so there was not much even to come out.

For jewelry the 5 day test was really not necessary since nobody who cares for their jewelry or anything they purchase is really gonna dump it in a pot of water and just leave it there.

I guess the 5 day experiment is good for people who thought they could make underwater toys or something like that but lumina clay is not good for that.

So the final question that started this post which is

Is Lumina Clay waterproof? Technically it is but it does have some issues with changing color depending on the amount of time left in water.

I hope this post was helpful . Thanks for reading

Also make sure to check out my other Lumina Clay Reviews

PART 1 – Lumina Clay Review
PART 2 – Lumina Clay Coloring Tutorial
PART 3 – Lumina Clay Tips & Tricks

In this tutorial I will show you the results of coloring lumina clay and what works and what doesnt.

On the package of lumina it says you can color it with acrylic paint, oil paint, colored hearty clay to create custom colors.

Since Im never one to try the conventional lol I decided to first try it with ink. I wanted to see if using ink it would help increase the translucent nature of lumina clay.

I added about 2 drops of ink to a little chunk of clay and it blended easily and smoothly. Then as I was blending the clay after a couple of minutes I started to feel the clay dry out a bit.

So I added a bit of water
*and I do mean just a bit just a tiny tap from my finger tip was a bit much
When you add water to lumina it does get a bit tacky which is actually good because it helps the clay blend smoothly. I found that after I add water for about a minute or so after I can let it rest or keep blending it the tackyness will go away. I will be left with a perfectly smooth non dry piece of lumina clay. I really love that part about it.

When you do add water though, a very tiny bit may stick to your fingers but you can just flake it of as it dries fast on the skin. Here is a picture below for you to see what I mean

Now when I got back to blending I started to see like white residue all over the clay. At first I thought it was because I thought it was starting to dry out but the clay was still soft but it had this powdery residue all over it.

It wasnt until later in the day I realized that was just residue from the alcohold evaporating from the “alcohol inks” duh sometimes the answer is so simple lol

so after I let the paper thin sheet of lumina dry I just wiped some water on it and the white residue came right off

oh and if you’re wondering about the hearts you can see the answer HERE

I then decided to mix in some acrylic paint. The paint mixes in beautifully of course no residue with the acrylic paint.

The only problem I had with mixing in paint was when I was trying to make the lumina clay red. It has nothing to do with lumina but more so on the paint I was using.

Im going to share it with you because pigment strength is really one of the most important things we need to have to achieve the perfect color you’re after.

Most colors are really easy but RED you really have to have a paint with alot of pigment.

I was using ceramcoat acrylic red paint at first.

now mind you this is like at 2 AM haha yes Im a night owl at times. So I couldnt really make out the colors but I knew that red color just didnt look right. So when I started mixing to my surprise hmmm a pastel pink ball of clay grrrrrr .

so then I thought I’ll just add some more “red paint” that should make it red right. hmmmm

NOOOOOOOOOOOO….. Hot Pink…. now while sitting in my dark craft room barely lit by a glowing yellow light im thinking this doesnt make any sense since my other red paints always turned my clay red and not pink.

dont worry I’ll get it in the next 5 minutes haha

Sidenote * If you look in the picture above you’ll notice some specks of pink in the clay. Thats because when you first mix in the paint once you got it fully mixed the clay will dry out some as the paint is drying. At this step you’ll notice the dry paint on your fingers … well dont make the mistake that I did go and wash the dried paint from your hands. What I did was I put some water on my hands while I still HAD the dried paint on it and really all I did was mix in dry specks of paint into the clay. So make sure you dont do that.

Wash the dry paint off and then you can add additional water to the clay to further blend the clay and avoid the specks.

Here is a piece of clay done the right way… see no specks of dried paint

anyway , this is still like like 2 minutes later, theres still like 3 minutes left before I get the tada moment that lets me create truly red clay haha

so now Im rolling out the pink clay still a bit sad its not red but hey its pink and who doesnt love pink

as you can see even with acrylic paint when rolled thin its still extremely translucent.

here is a different chunk of clay showing you the different depths and that its only translucent when rolled thin

here is the same clay just lying down with no light shining through

the beautiful thing about lumina is when the light shines through it.

So anyway yayyy we are now at minute 5 and I get my DUH moment and I realize that I really should be using my artist grade paints with lots of PIGMENT

cuz the truth is ceramcoat red is not really red its really more like magenta which is why my clay turned pink

so i took out some of my strong oil paints and decided to mix those in and see would it turn red and of course it did

as you can see in the picture my oil paints are actually red and not pink like the ceramcoat “red”

here you can the pieces of clay and how they came out. The ball on the left was made using the cadmium red and the ball on the right was made using the crimson red and the pink sheet on the bottom was using the ceramcoat red

Hope these tips help you out and now on to PART THREE OF THIS LUMINA TUTORIAL

and dont forget to read PART 1 which is my LUMINA REVIEW

and now here is a new addition to the lumina reviews

PART 4: Lumina Waterproof Experiment

Today I will be sharing my review for Lumina Clay. I have been wanting to try this clay out for a while and I am very excited to share my thoughts on it.

Lumina clay is an air dry polymer clay. On the package it says that it is waterproof, Translucent, Highly flexible, durable, acid free and non toxic. On average it cost about $10 to $12 dollars online for a 5.25 oz block of clay but if you use a coupon you can usually get it for half price. Lumina clay is made in japan but easily found online in american shops. I think its starting to become more popular now since it seems a couple of years ago it wasnt as readily available.

When I first got the package of lumina in the mail I was a bit shocked at the amount. I guess since I was used to alot of air dry clays that have alot more volume since other brands are puffed up with air. Lumina clay is totally different than other air dry clays. Since this is an air dry polymer clay and not an air dry paper clay it really does feel different than other air dry products.

As you can see in the pic below it fits in the palm of my hand

Here are 2 comparison shot next to a block of sculpey III so you can get a feel for the size of the block of lumina clay

Here is how it comes wrapped

In japan polymer air dry clays are really popular and they are usually called resin clays. On the package of lumina it doesnt say exactly what is in but Im assuming that its like alot of other japanese clays. Those clays are usually a mix of polymers also called resins and starch which allow it to air dry. I also think that because on the package it says to keep away from heat and flame and the polymers they use are probably some sort of thermo plastic that would start to soften at higher temperatures.

Another crafter named camille young ” who by the way makes beautiful flowers with lumina clay” said HERE – In her lumina review that in high humidity her flowers soften and became a bit droopy but as soon as the air wasnt humid her flowers hardened and returned to their original state.

That makes me feel like they do contain some sort of thermo plastic. Camille also mentioned that the block of clay grew a bit of mold when let out. I assume that was due to the starch the clay may contain. Since she probably lives in a humid area the plastic wrap that the clay is in probably beaded up with bits of water. When the condensation appeared in the plastic wrap without drying out the starch must have absorbed it, broken down into a sugar which then feeds mold spores which grow into yucky furry patches. I dont think pieces that are drying out will grow mold. I think the block itself could grow mold if while wrapped condensation gets to it.

I think to avoid mold or the clay drying out and to keep it maybe for a couple of months you have to wrap it properly. You can keep it in an air tight container. If you do live in a humid area you may want to keep it in the fridge. Or just keep it wrapped in the plastic wrap just make sure it doesnt have condensation if in a humid area or unwrapped because if its not wrapped air tight it will dry out.

Here is a picture of the back of the clay package. Also notice the package has a stamp date on it mine says 9-12-09 so my batch is about a year old. I think this is important because it probably does have starch in it which can go bad after a while and they probably need to really know the shelf life on this type of clay.

Here are a couple of pictures of how lumina clay looks when a chunk of it is pulled away. It looks a bit like laffy taffy and it feels actually a bit like really warm squishy translucent sculpey. Lumina clay is not sticky and very easy to work with.

Now the best part about lumina clay is that its translucent. Now the key word is translucent not transparent, it just allows for light to shine through which makes it fantastic for making flowers.

In the picture below you can see how the light shines through very thin pieces. The clay must be rolled very thin for it to be translucent. In thicker pieces it wont be translucent at all. Since it is very flexible it wont crack when rolled paper thin.

I also think lumina clay would be beautiful as miniature lamps for dollhouse since if you light them up the light would give a fantastic glow.

If you have any questions feel free to ask away

Also dont forget to check out my other lumina articles

PART 2: LUMINA CLAY COLORING TUTORIAL
PART 3: LUMINA CLAY TIPS AND TRICKS
PART 4: Lumina Waterproof Experiment

I hope you enjoyed reading this review

It cost 3.99 for a 4 oz block. When I compared the amount of a regular block of 2 oz sculpey III you’re getting the same amount 2 oz vs 2oz so at that rate pluffy clay cost around .75 cents more for the same amount of 2 oz , pluffy clay just comes in double the size.

When I took it out of the packate this is how it look

It feels and looks just like salt water taffy except that its not as stretchy. When I first ripped a chunk of it from the package it does feel squishy and soft , its basically kind of like pre kneaded sculpey III. Its slightly lighter than Sculpey III but its no where as light as lets say Hearty Clay, pluffy clay has like a medium weight to it , its a nice weight to make pieces with I really love this about it.

When I started playing around with it, it does warm up some. When its cooler it doesnt really stick to your fingers but as it warms up I felt a slight film start to coat on my fingers it felt like oil residue.

Then I decided to see how pluffy clay accepts other pigments since I only bought white. It does come in multi colored packages though.

I first added some soft pastels in a dark purple shade. As you can see in the picture below it did change colors but the more pigment I added the clay started getting super soft and the residue on my hand went from a slight film to thick layers sticking to my fingers

Here is a side by side comparison of the purple one next a chunk of the white one.

Then I decided to add some acrylic paint in to see how it mixed with that

As you can see in the picture the clay started to really fall apart , it turned very goopy and very messy.

I went to wash my hands with some soap and at it first it was a bit hard to remove all the stuff from my hands. The oily residue really sticks to your skin and I had to scrape it off my fingers with my nails and then rewash until it was finally all gone but even then it still feels like there was a slight film there.

Next I tried to see how the clay could be textured. I tried to make a quick ice cream scoop and it takes texture really well.

I then put some clay into one of my mini molds and this clay molds really well. It really only works on shallow molded pieces because as you can see in the pic I had a big chunk of clay outside the mold to even pull it out because the clay is so squishy you cant remove it from a deep mold without deforming it.

When I tried a more shallow mold I guess the clay was still too warm and it left some residue in my mold which is HORRIBLE. First because this clay does not dry and it leaves a film its going to be hard to clean the mold.

Then I wanted to see if chunks of the clay would stick together and make smooth seams and lines. At least it works well on those matters. The clay sticks to each other pretty good when the clay is warm , the cooler it is it might not stick as well. I guess I’ll find out when I bake it.

* Also dont mind my ugly kitty sculpture lol I did that in 5 seconds with the tip of my pen just to test it out lol

BAKED UPDATE

The good news is that it does bake really hard, although when I took it out the bottom seemed to be still a bit wet, I baked several pieces at different times and they all had this issue. So I flipped them over and had to bake the bottom to get it fully dry.

PROS

• Its soft

CONS

• When the clay is warm it stuck to all my tools and my fingers
• Annoying to clean up as it can leave a thick layer of residue

I dont know how Im going to use this clay. Its fun to work with but the clean up is so annoying I dont think it may really be worth it to really use. I spent more time cleaning up my hands and my tools then working with the clay. After every step of trying to make something I had to clean my hands from so much residue being over everything. All that residue adds up to wasted material as well, so I’ll test it out more over the next few days to see if I can find a use for it that really wows me away to the point that I would buy another package of it.

I will update this post again when I bake it

I decided to make mini whipped cream dollops for my miniatures. I just squeezed some into a pastry bag with a icing tip and just like regular frosting made some whipped cream dollops. It feels like really thick frosting the appearance is just like frosting which helps it to look realistic.

It hardens externally in like 30 minutes to an hour and fully dry inside in a few days depending on how thick you make it.

When it was dry I was very excited because at first touch it seemed very hard. Sadly though even with slight pressure on the tips of the whipped cream dollops, the tips broke off.

However the upside to this material is that its good for making frosting that your lathering on instead of more detailed shapes that are thin like the tips of whipped cream dollops.

When ur frosting ur minis like cupcakes or cookies it can crack though so it resembles more of a royal icing type of frosting. It does look realistic but if you are one of the ones that likes their mini’s to be flawless I wouldnt recommend this.

It mixes with acrylic paint beautifully and easily. The basic line of liquitex is suppose to be the more economy brand rather than a pro brand they also carry. I may try other more expensive brands to see if they dry to a harder finish.

So my final conclusion is I wouldnt use this brand to make whipped cream dollops. I will use to frost some cookies, cakes, cupcakes or even to make fake snow on displays.

Since I use puff paint for more precision work this new tube is really of no use to me. I prefer the regular bottles they make. I guess if you want to make something like graffiti splatters and such you might like it but you can easily get the same effect with the regular bottles and a something to smear the paint.

Plus the Paint taggers only come in a few colors versus their regular line that comes in a large amount of colors.

I do have to try the paint canon that they came out with that might be interesting to try . If I get that I’ll let you know how it goes.