Silky-Smooth Air Dry Clay Recipe:
First, mix together –
- 1/2 cup toilet paper (24 grams dry, 110 grams wet)
- 1/2 cup Drywall Joint Compound (200 grams) – Note: DAP brand joint compound will not work. Use any other brand except DAP.)
- 1/2 cup Elmer’s glue (130 grams)
- 1/2 cup corn starch (70 grams)
- 3 tablespoons mineral oil (baby oil)
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour (70 grams) to start
Then, add up to 3/4 cup (100 grams) all-purpose flour and mix.
This is one of the most popular craft recipes on this site…
I used this air dry clay for all of the animal dolls in my book, How to Make Adorable Baby Animal Dolls: With Soft-Sculpted Bodies and Heads Made with Silky-Smooth Home-Made Air-Dry Clay. (Yes, I like long subtitles. 🙂 )
You can also use this recipe with any of my patterns for masks and sculptures, but you may need to brush some Elmer’s glue onto the cardboard to make sure it will stick.
Note: This clay is a variation of my original paper mache clay recipe, and it’s intended to be used as a thin layer over an armature. It won’t dry all the way through if you use it as a thick, solid mass, like ‘real’ clay.
However, many readers have told me that it works well in small silicone molds, and some people have used it for beads. If you want to use it without an armature, be sure to do your own tests to make sure it will be strong enough for your needs.
This clay isn’t as sticky as the original paper mache clay, so there are some tricks to using it. Be sure to watch this video to see how it’s done.
How to Mix the Smooth Air Dry Clay Ingredients
Step 1: Measure the paper
You’ll need 24 grams of dry toilet paper. You can use any brand.
Step 2: Get the paper wet
Use plenty of water, and swirl it around with your fingers to separate the fibers.
Step 3: Drain off the water
A metal sieve works really well for this.
Step 4: Weigh the wet paper
You’ll need 110 grams. Keep squishing out water until the scale shows you have only 110 grams of paper and water.
Step 5: Mix in the ingredients
In this step you only want to use half of the flour. You’ll mix in more flour in the next steps.
Step 6: Add the last half of the flour
Use your dough hooks for this step, because the air dry clay will start to get very heavy, and the regular mixing blades don’t work very well. If the mixer has to work too hard, you may need to do this part by hand – you don’t want to burn out the motor!
Step 7: Knead in enough corn starch to get the consistency you want
The amount of corn starch is entirely up to you. It will make the air dry clay stiffer, which makes it easier to form fine details. However, the stiffer it gets the less sticky it gets, so pieces of clay won’t stick together as well. Play with it with different amounts of corn starch until you get it the way you like it.
What paper clay would you use to make pins and necklaces out of? how can I make them water proof?
A lot of people use the smooth air dry clay. We even have a guest post about it. But I don’t know of any way to make it completely waterproof.
Hi I am Susmita. I really liked your projects and want to know can I use this clay on glass surface ? Please answer.
Hi Susmita. I don’t believe it would stick to glass. I haven’t tried it, though.
Can I use this clay to make decorative planters? Meaning, planters you’d put a normal plastic, draining plant pot in to make look nice? It wouldn’t necessarily hold the actual soil and plant itself, but decorate/hide the plastic pot the plant is in now. I hope this makes sense. Can you use the clay to make this? And then maybe I’d glaze the dried clay in epoxy for added water resistance? Thank you so much!!
Hi Hannah. You could do that, as long as the air dry clay never gets wet. Make a small item as a test, and use the epoxy product on it. Then, after the epoxy cures, leave the test piece in water for a few days and see what happens. If the water gets through the epoxy, the air dry clay will feel soft.
Would it be possible to make a decorative sleeve instead of a planter? So it has an open bottom and slips over the real planter and the saucer underneath? Then it would rarely get wet.