I continue my search for ways to recycle my shavings of baked/cured clay. (TerraCycle does not currently accept polymer as part of one of their programs although they encouraged me to check back as they are adding to their accepted materials list all the time.)
Here is one simple re-use of already baked clay thats working well for me so far. I just treat the pre-baked bits as inclusions. No doubt some of you are already doing this but this is my method.
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Chop the pre-baked clay by hand into pea size bits if its large and then pulverize it to varying degrees of grain in a coffee grinder. I worked with a mixture of sizes for these beads. I wear a mask to do this because some of the clay is so small that its dust.
I incorporate the grit into an unbaked piece of clay. Here I mixed up a "cardboard" sort of brown to play with the recycled theme.
Incorporating the grits deeply into the clay or just into the outside surface will achieve different looks.
Next I shaped and texturize the beads with sanding pads. I make my basic shape, they I pierced the bead and go back and shape further with the needle through the bead.
I've tried differing amounts of the re-used inclusions and several colors of soft clay, keeping to neutrals so far.
Do you have good ways to recycle/re-use pre-baked clay? I'd love to hear what you are doing!
