Clay Review: Cold Porcelain/Craft Porcelain

Cold porcelain (also known as craft porcelain) is an air-dry clay that can be made with home ingredients. 
For a good tutorial on how to make cold porcelain, click here. It consists mostly of glue and corn starch. You can make it in the microwave or on the stove. I chose to make mine in the microwave. 

I personally like this clay because it is very durable. I think it is more durable than polymer clay. It's cheaper than polymer clay, and you can colour it with paint, markers, chalk pastels, etc. 

This is how I store my clay. You want to put it in an air-tight container so it doesn't dry out. I didn't have an air-tight container, so I wrapped mine in cling wrap, then put it in a ziplock bag, then put it into a container. 

This is the consistency you should get when you pull it apart. It should form a tear drop shape.

As you can see, you get a lot more cold porcelain than polymer clay when you make it yourself. 

Cold porcelain is translucent, as you can see when I hold it up against light. 

Cold porcelain has a very nice consistency. It is soft and smooth. However, since this is an air-dry clay, I find that it dries way too quickly for my liking (or maybe I'm just used to taking my time because I use polymer clay). Also, the size of the creation shrinks by 18%, so you'll never know what size your creation will really be when it dries. The colour also gets darker, so again, you never know what colour your creation will be when it dries. I also find it very difficult to take the clay out of mold putty molds, as it is very soft, thus ruining the shape of the creation. It takes around 1-2 days to fully dry, but it depends on the size and thickness of your charm. 

Here is an example of how much the clay shrinks. The original size is the mold in the middle, and the 4 biscuits are made out of cold porcelain. 

I will only recommend this type of clay for cabochons or simple charms (that's what I use it for). I like to make tart molds especially because of it's translucent-ness.