Sculpey 30 Colour Sampler

We received this 30 colour sampler earlier in the week and spent a good deal of yesterday making things from it. It is true that there are no instructions included, but there are loads of ideas on the Internet. Sculpey (and Fimo, the other well known brand) are examples of polymer clay. It's mostly like plasticine before baking, but when you bake it in the oven, it turns into a hard, durable plastic. The colours are vivid, and the models don't shrink during baking. When you stick two pieces together, after baking they stay together: I've only had a bit come off when I dropped it. The fact that it's coloured allows kids to make nicely detailed models: trying to paint details onto air dry clay or salt dough often results in a mess, but making the details out of little bits of coloured clay and sticking them on is much easier and looks great. Once you get into making things with polymer clay, you realize that this is a serious artists' medium, and that the sky is the limit when it comes to artistic possibilities with this stuff. Look up "Skinner blends" or "millefiori polymer" for a couple examples of what you can do with this. The only downside is the cost: polymer clay is expensive. The best way to deal with this is simply to make small models. This 30 colour sampler is superb value for money and great for someone who has started to get into making things with polymer clay and wants to get a huge range of colours so they always have what they need at their fingertips. I would not, however, recommend it as the very first polymer clay purchase for someone who has never used it before. It's a bit daunting: what do you do with it all? I would recommend something like the Sculpey butterflies set as a great intro to polymer clay. This has detailed instructions and a couple of useful tools, and the butterflies you get out look really nice.