Clay glaze..?

So you've made your clay charms, what's next? Well something that I probably have forgotten to mention is that paper-clay will fade out in colour if you do leave it exposed for a long time. You also don't want your clay to get wet because it will change the structure of the clay and degrade.

To keep your clay creations lasting longer and stronger you will need to invest some money into buying a glaze for your clay. I've read online that people like to use the popular Sculpy Glossy Gloss Glaze but I found that the Sculpy glaze gets sticky overtime particularly on Paper Clay. I'm not too sure how it works with Polymer clay..

Anyway, after a bit of research I found out that many people use floor varnish to coat their clay charms and creations. I went to my local Bunnings Warehouse and bought a tin of clear wood varnish and I pretty much use this for all my clay creations whether it be paper or polymer clay.

Here we have Feast Watson's clear polyurethane wood varnish. This cost me $15 for a 250mL tin which I reckon is okay seeing how I use to buy clay glaze for $8 for 30mL (yikes pricey!). It comes in 3 different types: Gloss, Satin and Matte. The gloss comes out really thick and super shiny. It's way more shinier than the Sculpy Glaze that I previously used. On the other end is the Matte glaze that doesn't have a shine at all. I know some glazes say they're matte yet they still end up with a hint of shine to them, this one has ZERO shine to it. And then you have something in between, the Satin glaze which is shiny but it's just not as thick and not as glossy as the Gloss.

I wasn't too sure whether I wanted the Satin or the Gloss glaze because most of my clay creations are of miniature foods and if I really wanted them to look realistic they shouldn't have any shine at all...But I couldn't resist the sparkle of the gloss glaze so I went with it.

To apply this glaze on my charm, I literally just hang my clay charm on a paperclip and dip it into the tin and then leave it to hang somewhere. The Gloss varnish is really thick and there will be quite a bit of drip when you first dip your charm in and hence you will need to cover your working space (I use baking paper). If you take a look at the photos below you can see how it's done.

Clay without any glaze~

Clay hanging on a paper clip~ (and the drip I was talking about)

Clay all glazed and dried~! (oooh so shiny *_*)

I know the varnish says it's clear but in fact the glaze has a slightly yellow/brown tint to it. By looking at the photos you can see that the charm has gotten a lot darker after being glazed and in the second photo you can see the drip on the paper is brown colour. This isn't really a problem for me...but I know a lot of people will want to preserve the colour of their clay and if you're one of them, then wood varnish is not for you and you might want to invest in an actual craft glaze.

The photos show just one coat of the glaze. If you add another coat it'll be thicker and I suppose shinier to some extent but it takes quite a bit of time to dry. One coating took about an entire day to completely dry. You'll need to make sure it's not in a super dusty place otherwise you'll have dust sticking to it. And try refrain yourself from touching the charm whilst it's drying, I know it's very tempting. ;)