Homemade Polymer Clay

My kids wanted to make erupting volcanoes, and we needed some clay first in order to do so.  I found this recipe for Polymer clay.  We got one volcano out of one batch, but I am not sure I made it right, as it was SUPER sticky, and not really mold-able or clay like.  It did harden after a couple of days, and we were able to erupt our volcano, but it didn’t work well enough to be worth making again 🙁 .  If anyone has any tips to make it better, or have found another recipe that worked for them, please share!!

MATERIALS NEEDED:

3/4 cup white glue
1 cup cornstarch
2 tablespoons mineral oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Non-stick pot
Wooden spoon

DIRECTIONS:

Add cornstarch and glue to a nonstick pot.

Mix together and then add mineral oil and lemon juice.

Blend well.

Cook over low flame stirring pretty much constantly (you can take a quick break or two if your arm gets tired, which it will) until the mixture resembles mashed potatoes.

It took me almost 25 minutes before it resembled mashed potatoes.

 Remove from heat.  Squirt a little additional mineral oil around the top of your mashed potato mass and with your hands, remove it from the pot. Knead until smooth. It’s best to do this while it’s still as hot as you can handle.  Unfortunately for me, it was super sticky, so I just formed one thing from it, and had to wash my hands many times in order to get the goop off.  I also had to soak my pot and spoon for a few hours before all the glue dissolved off of it.

If you want to paint it, let dry about 2-3 days, then paint.  If the dough works for you, you can keep it in a sealed container in the fridge.