Can you bend polymer clay? Should you? Why?

[@R.S_Howell]

Yeah, I've seen people bemused as to why they would want their earrings to have bendability, not realising that it is just a symptom of being well-made and not a desirable feature in itself. This needs more views

[@thebluebottletree]

Thank you. Please share it around on Facebook and such. I think it would help a lot of people who are quite confused about the subject. Bemused. Great word.

[@jls12341000]

Thank you! Just had a discussion about “flexible clay” I couldn’t understand why they cared haha The point is about baking correctly of course. I’m linking this to every convo about flex from now on. I always recommend and link The Blue Bottle Tree anyway, especially for newbies and any time the questions about brittle, crumbly or fragile clay comes up - straight to your Baking Tutorial!

[@kristinaviolette5081]

Thank you! All these posts have been driving me crazy. I'm not sure what people are thinking 🤔

[@BellaJewlzStudio]

Hi. I bake my clay for the recommended time. Even over the time by 20 min. I have an oven thermometer and it still breaks. 😢

[@brittanyholland6261]

This is really helpful! How long should the clay be baked for thicker pieces for earrings?

[@citrusbutter7718]

Most people who want durability bake for an hr. The longer the bake the stronger. The only drawback is some colors or brands might darken slightly or look a little less vibrant in color with longer baking, but it's not like it's such a huge difference that you'd hold off from baking longer, just manipulate the colors before sculpting if you want it to be as close to the original color that you want as possible, like mixing in fluorescent yellow into zinc yellow and baking it for an hr and the end result is a baked piece of clay that looks closer to the original zinc yellow where it doesn't look as dark, just brighten it for vibrancy. Also translucent clays tend to get darker with longer baking or slightly yellower, so if you really care about that just bake it for slightly less time like maybe 40 to 50 mins, personally i still do an hr because i don't notice much of a difference with my premo white translucent especially when baked thinner, but like i said it depends on the brands.