After those first few blocks of clay, about when you realize you’ll need a few of every colour and one of each tool you find, you start to think about storage. Since polymer clay stays usable for a long, long time under ideal conditions… you aim for the ideal conditions. Something that will keep it out of dust and heat but that the clay itself is compatible with. In my case that’s always been some combination of plastic zip bags, plastic tubs and shelves.
My unopened clay is on a rack in my studio shop, housed in a commercial building in my small town, for both me to pick from and students to buy off of. I found a few of these old book displays at the thrift store.
Once the clay gets opened it tends to live on my studio tables for a while but most of it gets put away regularly. The tub on the bottom catches scraps, loosely sorted into colour ways. There’s usually a few tubs going around here. Opened but not mixed blocks go in one of the blue lidded shallow boxes. Blends in one of the tackle boxes, canes to sell in other tackle boxes. Canes and blends and such that I’m using into the other blue lidded boxes.
Storage is a moving target for me – when I used far less clay, I got away with a few boxes on a bookshelf and that worked for a long time. These days, between studio work, classes and the physical shop I have more to store but also dramatically more space. As long as I remember to label and put things away, it even stays relatively neat.
What do you guys use?
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