Merry go round - Five favourite tools

It's the last Friday of the month, so join us on our merry go round for a quick spin.  Our merry go round is where a group of 11 artists/craftwomen link together around the world and tell you a little about their art and craft, through blogging on the same topic. We have three new members this month: Jen, Samantha, and Bethany, so I hope you'll check all the links at the bottom of this post and see what their favourite tools are for their art.


This month's topic is a blog list of our 5 favorite tools! I decided to focus on my favorite tools for metal clay.  Here are the five - in the order of when I use them in my creations, plus links to where you can buy them:

• The clay shaper

 I have a few different shaped clay shapers and in fact have just ordered another couple as after a while they do wear down a little and get more flimsy. Anyhow, I use the clay shapers for squidging clay into little gaps.  I'm sure the manufacturers don't use the word 'squidge' in their description - but it is a wonderful tool for that.  For example, if I've attached two pieces of clay together and it's dried but there is a little gap - out comes the clay shaper, grabs a bit of clay and squidges it in the gap! Perfect! It also smoothes out clay, and is great for adding little bits of clay to a piece.

• The needle tool

The needle tool is a perfect tool for lots of things.  Like the clay shaper, it can be used to squidge clay into very tight spots - but I think I use it more often for making eyes and other little accents on my pieces.  It is a sharp point, and makes a nice little eye - for example on my bluebirds.  Also, when making hinges, you can put the little tubes on the needle point tool to dry.... when joining two pieces, you can rough up the surface to get a better join by marking with the needle tool.... when bits of clay get stuck in cutters, you can poke them out with this tool so it's great for clean up too! In fact, I find it on my finishing bench quite a lot too... A versatile little thing!

• 3M sanding pad

I love the 3M sanding pads - which come in different grits - although I tend to use the superfine most of all. As they are pads, you can bend them as you sand, and they just conform to the shape of the piece and follow the contours perfectly. When I'm making sculptural pieces - which is most of the time - I don't want to file with something rigid and flat  like a file, because then you tend to get flat surfaces on your piece. Instead, I want soft curves to my birds, animals and figures - so these pads are just the best. I tend to use them on dry clay but you can also use them on fired silver too.

• Mini fiber wheel

This is an attachment that you use in your rotary tool to finish your pieces after firing.  I am not a person who likes shiny silver and so I tend to use this on just about all my pieces.  Basically, after you have sanded your fired piece of silver, a quick brush over the piece with this in your rotary tool gives it a lovely matt finish.   Some love shiny, I love matt!

• Ruler Tape

 So this is a very un-metal clay tool!  Basically its a roll of sticky tape that is marked off as a ruler in inches and centimetres.  You pull off a length of 30 cm, and stick it wherever you like. I have a length stuck on my worktops, on my laptop, inside the drawer on my desk...and various places. Then when I need to measure something, I don't have to hunt around for a ruler.  The one of my desk drawer and laptop are perfect when I list items on websites because I can measure their dimensions easily...and also can check chain lengths etc when I'm mailing things out.  Such a simple product but as it's stuck down, you never lose it!


A couple of other tools that I couldn't live without are my kiln, of course, for firing my metal clay, and my rotary tool for numerous finishing/sanding tasks that it does. Both are used hard  and I had to give them a mention in case they took offense at being omitted and decided to stop working in protest - but they seem more like "power tools" so would go at the top of my top 5 power tool list instead! 

I hope you check out what the other in the merry go round have for their top 5 tools by clicking on the links or blog hop below.   We all live in different places around the world, so time differences may impact when we all get our blog post up.

Samantha at Vintage is for lovers - http://www.vintageisforlovers.com/
Jen at Painted Fish Studio - http://paintedfishstudio.com/
Bethany at Dirksen Dabbles - http://www.dirksendabbles.com/
Laura at Blue Terracotta -  http://blueterracotta.com/
Monika at Red2White - http://red2white.wordpress.com/
Mitsy at ArtMind - http://artmind-etcetera.blogspot.com
Kim at Vilt a la Kim - http://viltalakim.com/blog/
Sara at Crafts of Texture - http://sarastexturecrafts.blogspot.com
Mariana at Florcita - http://florcita.eu/wordpress/
Agathe at Le Bar du Vent - http://lebarduvent.blogspot.com

Ruth at Birdland Creations - http://insidetheartisan.blogspot.com

Or else you can click on the blog hop below.  If you are a merry go round participant, please add your link if it's not already included. You can then copy the code and put it on your blog post too.