In the years since I started working with polymer clay I have bought a lot of tools. When I started doing clay I was pretty poor and buying tools for crafting was a mater of serious budgeting. Luckily polymer clay is pretty forgiving stuff and a lot of what you have in your craft box or around the house work great.

Ginger from The Blue Bottle Tree wrote an article about this on her blog. To that list I have to add that a lot of my first round of tools were the odds and ends of my kitchen and utility room:

• a marble rolling pin that I never used in the kitchen
• old cookie cutters in boring shapes
• lids from tins and bottles
• wallpaper and drywall scrapers
• extra paring knives
• old pans for baking in or project storage
• old plastic cutting boards and glass shelves
• mason jars, film canisters and tea tins as storage
• fence wire for skewers and armatures

My first pasta machine came from a discount kitchen outlet – and it still works fine just about 15 years later – but my second, third and fourth ones came from garage sales for under $10 and two of those are higher end Italian machines that STILL work fine. I made myself custom baking and varnishing racks from a roll of flashing because the purpose made ones were too pricey. I still use those at least every week.