Check to see if there’s a local polymer clay group in your area. They always welcome newcomers. Also, the internet/YouTube have many resources to get you started.

Decide how you plan to use your clay (sculpture, beads, pendants, etc.) This will determine the types of extra tools and the type of clay you need. Have fun!

There are tons of books as Katie mentioned. Start with one that gets you started on the basics. If the projects are too advanced you could get discouraged. As to tools, just about anything will work. You could hit the flea markets and garage sales for interesting cutting and shaping tools. If you have cookie cutters with hearts, stars and the like they are good for large pendant bases. Art supply stores have multi-molds, usually themed, pattern impression sheets and so on. You can also use patterned glass ware, “silver” ware, and anything else that has a deep enough pattern to it, like rubber stamps, and other assorted item you might find at a flea market or garage sale. You can also see if your dentist has any tools that are old and they are thinking of tossing. I found a huge treasure trove of dental tools at a flea market, once where the wife was selling her late husbands tools, including dental tools. Other useful tools are Needles, fondue forks, knitting needles, razor blades with one edge, replacement knife blades for the various types of utility knives you may have laying around. I have made specialty shaped tools from coat hanger wire, where I shaped one end of a 3 – 6″ piece with a hammer then fine tuned with a Dremel. With this method I have made tiny scoops, various cutters, pointed 3 to 4 sided tools for drilling and scribing. At the other end of the shaped point on a 3″ piece flatten it at two points then shape scrap clay around it to form a handle. On a 6″ piece of coat hanger wire make two tool ends and flatten two or three spots and wrap you scrap clay around those flattened spots for a dual purpose tool. Experiment, experiment experiment! Have fun! Like Rena said start with colors that match or complement your bead stash. Also… to add a bit of fun, some poly clays are flexible! Some brands are harder end products than others. Sculpy is usually a little softer than premo and others, easier to work with, BUT the others polish up better. After a half bake you can hand carve into all of them, you can do this with a full bake, but it is easier with a half bake. You can use dental tools, those coat-hanger tools, and a rotary tool to carve sharper detail and not leave finger prints. You can use Original sculpy or flexible sculpy to flatten with your pasta maker and scribe patterns into it and half bake it, then fine tune your carving/scribed pattern and use it as your own unique texture plate. Oh…if you have a big Shot or some other scrapbooking texture plates or cutters those can be used with poly clay too. You might not be able to use them for scrapbooking again though. If there is foam in the cutter that has to be removed to use with polyclay thinly rolled out.

PS: I like my coat-hanger tools the best for fine detail, even better than dental tools. Oh I forgot, you will need baby powder for a texture or mold release agent and Mineral Oil or one of the polyclay solvents to soften hardened clay or attach new clay to an already fired but not finished piece.

Fire Mountain Gems has a great resource in their free, how to sections, including videos by their featured artisans. (No I do not work for them, but I am a customer for many years and did win a Polyclay award in one of their contests.)

Good luck and have fun.

Diana Pucci