More about Paper clay

I've decided that today I will be continuing on with the list of materials required to making clay creations so that you do get a good grasp as to what you will need. So this blog post will be all about Paper clay!

In my previous post, I had a mini comparison session between Paper clay and Polymer clay. Because I use Paper clay the most when making clay charms, I thought it would be interesting to show you what type of Paper clay I use and maybe do like a mini review of each brand. 

If you're living in Japan then Paper clay is super affordable and easy to get your hands on. But since moving to Australia I've found that paper clay is really, really difficult to find. Luckily as I have mentioned, there is now a DAISO here and it's now quite easy to buy Paper clay otherwise I would stock up on Paper clay each time I went back to Japan.

So let's take a look at the types of clay that I use. Here are 4 types of Paper clay that I use most frequently. 3 of them have been bought from DAISO and the last one is from Japan. All of them are air-dry clays so there's no baking required. Just a lot of waiting...

The first clay we'll be looking at is Paper clay bought from DAISO. I bought this from the DAISO in Australia so it cost me $2.80 for the 500g packet. This clay resembles mud in the sense that it's really moist to begin with and has a very dense texture. The colour is not pure white and so the clay will have a grey-ish tint when you add coloured paints to it. I don't find the grey tint a problem because usually I'm adding a layer of paint on top of the clay and so it doesn't have a huge impact on my creations. It becomes a bit difficult if you're using some sort of mould to shape your clay because it's so moist, it just smears when removing it from the mould.

This is wood clay also bought from DAISO. This clay is super light in weight and has more of a paper texture. In other words it has a paper-mache/damp tissue feeling. The clay comes in a brown colour that stays prominent even after adding coloured paints to it. Like the clay above, it shouldn't be a big issue if you're going to be adding a layer of paint on top of the clay. I like to use this clay when making brown clay creations because it saves me the time of having to colour white clay. It dries super fast as well and you can remoisten your clay by adding water.

And here's your standard paper clay from DAISO once again. This paper clay comes in a variety of colours: black, blue, yellow, red etc. I like to buy the white clay and make my own colours by adding paint. Alternatively you can buy the pre-coloured clay and mix them together to form the colours of your choice. This paper clay is super light weight, and dries pretty fast. You can use different moulds to shape this clay, it's pretty easy to use but I do find that it sticks to surfaces quite easily. If it gets a bit dry, simply add water and your clay is good to go again!

The last one is part of the Tamiya Decoration Series. So the Tamiya Decorations Series brand in Japan has a range of materials and tools that allow you create your very own clay sweets. This cost me about 400yen and is very similar to the white paper clay bought at DAISO. I think the only difference is probably the quality of the clay. On feel, you can tell that the Tamiya Decorations clay is of higher quality. It's super soft, retains its moisture for longer and doesn't stick to surfaces or moulds as easily as the previous clay. I think the best thing about this clay is that it is really easy to create the texture of cookies, breads, ice cream etc. 

So there you have a little insight into the clays that I use. There are heaps and heaps of brands of air-dry clay out there. I know people use COSMOS, Kutsuwa Fuwafuwa, Premier etc that are much higher in quality. I'm happy to just settle with DAISO clay because it's just too troublesome to order other brands online. Plus the online prices are way more expensive than the retail price in Japan.

Be aware that these are all air-dry clays and so leaving them out will dry them up. You can remoisten paper clay but if it gets to the point that it is completely dry, it just becomes really difficult. I recommend double bagging your clay in a snap-lock bag and keeping it in a cool storage area. :)