Marbled Clay Erasers

While visiting New York last weekend, my sister and I took our annual pilgrimage to Five Below. We don’t have them on the West Coast so I like to make a stop there when I’m visiting. Just like my sister needs her annual visit to Daiso here in California. Five Below has some fun crafts supplies, one of them being eraser clay (you can also find a set on Amazon)…

I figured for $5 I could come up with something to make with them, hence these fun marbled erasers were born.

I thought a marble look would be a modern way to utilize the clay. Pairing them with pencils I painted to match and some gold paint really made them shine.

To paint the pencils, I first taped off the metal part with washi tape.

I then used the acrylic paint to cover the standard yellow. I mixed my paint to match the colors of clay I was using for each marbling.

I gave each pencil 2 coats of color and used a piece of polymer clay to hold them while they dried.

After my colors were dry, I removed the tape and carefully applied the gold enamel paint over the silver. I chose not to use washi here for fear that it might pull off some of the acrylic. If I had some, I would have sprayed the pencils with a layer or 2 of sealer to ensure no chipping or scratches. I recommend this step when trying this on your own.

To make my marbled erasers, I used white, black, gold and a color for each one. I found the clay required quite a bit of kneading to get it into a clay-like consistency. The white was particularly stubborn and took the most working with in order for it become soft and smooth. But once it did, it was a pleasure to work with.

The majority of the clay was white, then the color, then equal parts gold and black.

The basic steps for marbling are pretty simple… roll, twist, fold and ball:

You can adjust these steps as you see fit, but I found that they gave a good marble look without blending the colors too much.

Once my ball was made, I rolled it into a bit of a squat cylinder…

I then pressed my pencil end into the top of the cylinder, and it helped make the start of the ball shape I was going for.

Once I had it on the pencil I rolled it slightly in my hand to make the sphere a bit more even.

I did this for my 4 erasers, and then baked them according to the package’s directions.

I wanted to give them a bit more ‘something-something’, so I added some gold touches to match the gold on the pencils.

The paint will stop the eraser from working, but I only covered part of each, and towards the bottom so I don’t think I sacrificed function over form.