In the past I have stored my Fimo Soft in 2 ice cream tubs. One tub with new packets and the other with my open packets. Once I opened a packet I wrapped any left back in the wrapper and popped it back in the tub. Any odd scraps went in a 'scrap bag' in the open packets box. I realised that over time sometimes my clay had a few crumbs of a different colour on them which isn't ideal. The bits were just thrown in the box and rumaging aorund for the right colour was what was causing the contamination. Now I am using Kato which is firmer, and more crumbly than the Fimo soft so I will need to be more careful I think, also I am more likely to have blended colours as the range of colours available in Kato is much smaller.
I have decided to try storing sheets of conditioned clay and mixed colours in punched pockets to see if that helps. I am conditioning a whole 2oz block at once and what I am not using I am sheeting on the largest pasta machine setting and storing in the polythene pocket. I cut down the front sheet next to the binding so that it opened to get the clay in and out. I saw this system in a video tutorial posted by Alice Stroppel on her blog
http://polymerclayetc.com/ . I'll let you know how it works out.
I have also started storing my scrap clay in different colour bags rather than all in one big bag. My old scrap bag has lots of lovely colours but all mixed up and some of the nicer colours are covered in horrible clashing crumbs. I also now have a cane offcuts bag for those small but pretty bits of scrap, thinking Natasha beads here. I think I may try and get some divided boxes so I can just leave it open on the table and throw the scrap in the right colour segment rather than having to find the right bag. Again I'll let you know how it works out and please do share your ways of storing with me. Someone must have a great system already!
I know not all plastics are safe with polymer clay but Kato web site states Polypropylene which is marked as recycling symbol 5 is safe with their clay. I have emailed Staedtler about Fimo as I can't find any advice on their website. There is a lot of information on
Cindy Leitz's blog about storing clay and she says things marked with a 1 or a 5 are safe for clay. Generally hard crystal clear plastic should be avoided - I have ruined some good canes in these type of boxes :(
If you have any top tips for storing your clay please let me know.
Next to think about how I store my canes cause a have tried a few ways and no of them have really worked...