Polymer Clay Trinket Dish Tutorial | Sunburst

Follow this step-by-step polymer clay trinket dish tutorial and create your own Sunburst pattern with mica shift and mokume gane.

If you’re like me, you love trinket dishes. I have several of these handy little catch-alls scattered about the house. Not only are they great for keeping all your wee trinkets neat and tidy, they’re fun to make.

I was thinking outside the box (for me) when I designed this dish. Typically, I’ll make a trinket dish using a cane veneer but when I saw the mica shift and mokume gane veneers I made for previous tutorials, I knew they had to be made into a sun.

The colors and the sunburst pattern are giving me 70s retro vibes, which I’m a total sucker for.

This polymer clay trinket dish brings together three previous tutorials on the blog. I first made DIY texture rollers and then used them to make the mica shift and mokume gane veneers. Follow the links below to learn how to make your own.

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Once you have your veneers made the rest of the project is fairly simple. As long as you have a steady hand to cut out the pieces they’ll fit together nicely.

To reduce the effort and time you put into sanding, make sure all the seams are neatly burnished and the outer edge of the dish is smoothly cut before curing. The neater the trinket dish before it’s cured means less time spent on fixing flaws with sanding.

So, with those things in mind, let’s dive in and make a Sunburst polymer clay trinket dish.

Tools & Materials

Non-porous work surface—I work on either glazed tile or glass
Pasta machine dedicated to polymer clay use—I use an Atlas 180 and will refer to the settings I use on my machine. If you don’t have a pasta machine an acrylic roller and some playing cards will do in a pinch, it’ll just take a little more work
Coordinating polymer clay mica shift & mokume gane veneers plus extra metallic clay for center of sun and a coordinating color for the back of the dish (does not need to be metallic)
Texture sponge (optional—I use this one here)
Sunburst Trinket Dish template (download template here)
Polymer clay blade
Craft knife
Ruler
Oven safe bowl or trinket dish silicone shaper
Parchment paper
Aluminum foil or a foil baking pan for tenting clay in the oven
Acrylic rod
Liquid clay
Extruder (optional)
Wet/dry sandpaper (I use 400, 600, 800, 1000, and 1500 grits)
Renaissance Wax (I’ve read Vaseline works just as well but I’ve never tried it myself)
A piece of denim or soft flannel for buffing—or a wool buffing pad (usually used for auto polishing) on a cordless drill

Directions for Polymer Clay Trinket Dish

Building the Sunburst

Make mica shift and mokume gane veneers in a coordinating palette using the linked tutorials or ones of your own design.

Download and print Sunburst Trinket Dish template. Cut template apart. (Keep a piece of the scrap paper for a step later on in the tutorial.)

cutting pieces from the mica shift veneer

Divide the sun ray pieces into two piles—odd and even numbers. Lay the odd numbered pieces onto the mica shift veneer. I laid mine out roughly in order to take advantage of the transition in the skinner blend. If you’ve just used a single color you don’t need to be quite so intentional in the layout.

Cut the pieces out using a craft knife and a ruler for the straight sides of the template. Make sure to keep your blade straight up and down as you cut to keep the edges straight rather than cut on an angle. Set the pieces aside, keeping the numbered template pieces with their clay cutouts.

Lay the even numbered pieces on the mokume gane veneer. This time I just laid the pieces over my favorite parts of the pattern. Cut them out using a craft knife and ruler. Set pieces aside, keeping the numbered template pieces with their clay cutouts.

Condition the metallic clay you’ll be using for the center of the sun and finish by sheeting it on a medium thick setting (no.2 on my Atlas)

Now, remember that scrap piece of paper left from the template I told you to keep? Crumple it into a ball and use it to texture the metallic clay.

Shave off the raised areas with a sharp blade. Cover with a piece of parchment paper and burnish.

Run the piece through the pasta machine on the medium setting (no.2) and then the next setting down (no.3) so it is the same thickness as the sun ray pieces.

Cut out a circle using the template piece or a 1.5” circle cutter if you have one.

piecing polymer clay trinket dish together

Begin laying the sun ray pieces around the center circle. Using a polymer clay blade snug each piece up to its neighbor as you lay them in place. If you don’t, by the time you get to the last piece it won’t fit and you’ll have to take it all apart and start over. Trust me on this.

Once your sun is assembled lay a sheet of parchment over it and burnish the seams. I start by using a finger along each seam, gently coaxing them closed. I then finish by running an espresso tamper over the whole thing.

Applying the Backing Clay & Shaping the Dish

preparing the backing polymer clay sheet

Next up, condition the clay you’re using for the backing and finish by sheeting on a medium setting (no.3). If desired, and if you saved the shavings from the mokume gane, place them on the backing clay. Roll them in with an acrylic rod and finish by running the sheet through the pasta machine on the no.3 setting again.

Optional: Texture the backing clay with a texture sponge. I’m using one from this set. If you are using a bowl where you will have to bake the clay inside, rather than on outside the of bowl, don’t bother with this step. You’ll end up with shiny spots that need to be sanded off so there is no point in adding texture.

Lay the backing sheet, texture side down, on a sheet of copy paper or parchment paper. Lay the assembled sun over the backing sheet taking care not to trap air between the two layers. Using an acrylic rod, gently roll from the center to the outside edges, sealing the layers together and coaxing out any trapped air.

Lay the 4” circle template over the sun and trim away the excess clay with a craft knife.

shaping the polymer clay trinket dish on the mold

Gently peel the paper off the clay and center it on your dish mold of choice, shaping it to the form. I’m using this trinket dish silicone shaper. You don’t need a fancy tool like this though, any oven safe bowl of the right size will work. If the bowl has a smooth base on the outside you can use that to shape the dish. Otherwise place it inside the bowl, being careful not to trap air between the clay and the bowl.

Baking & Finishing Touches

Bake, tented with foil, at the recommended temperature for your brand of clay for one hour.

Allow the dish to cool before removing it from the mold.

Using the same clay used for the backing, extrude a narrow strip for the top edge of the dish. No extruder? Sheet the clay on a no.6 setting and cut a narrow strip using ruler and craft knife.

Smear a thin layer of liquid clay on the top edge of the dish and lay the clay strip over top. Butt the ends together neatly. Set the dish aside for five minutes to allow the raw clay begin to bond to the baked clay.

Using a craft knife, trim away excess clay so the strip is flush with the inside and outside of the dish. Gently smooth the seam and the edges with a finger tip.

Bake, tented with foil, at the recommended temperature for your brand of clay for 30 minutes.

Once the dish has cooled it’s time to begin sanding.

Add a couple drops of dish soap to a container of warm water and dip in a piece the 400 grit sandpaper. Sand the entire inside of the dish and the outside if you haven’t textured it. When it feels perfectly smooth to the touch, rinse the away the sanding residue and repeat with the 600 grit. When you’re happy with the feel, rinse again and move on to the next grit. Change the water when it becomes cloudy with sanding residue.

When you’ve gone through all the grits of sandpaper and are happy with the look and feel of the piece thoroughly dry it and then smear on a little Renaissance Wax. Let the wax dry and then buff to a shine with the denim, flannel, or, if you have a wool buffing wheel and cordless drill, use that.

Notes

Glass and glazed ceramic bowls work well for forming trinket dishes. However, they leave shiny spots on the cured clay where it’s been in contact with the bowl. These shiny spots need to be sanded in order to get rid of them. The silicone shaper tool eliminates the shiny spots and the need for sanding if you’d rather not be bothered.

However, for this project, mica shift needs to be sanded and buffed to bring out the depth and beauty of the technique. So don’t skip this step even if you’ve used silicone as a mold.

And as much as I don’t enjoy sanding, I love the feel of smoothly sanded polymer clay, so I always sand the inside of my trinket dishes, even when I don’t use a metallic clay.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this polymer clay trinket dish tutorial!

Please tag me on Instagram (@bysandracallander) if you try this tutorial, I’d love to see your creations. As always, if you have any questions or comments, I’m happy to hear from you.