DIY Sushi Eraser Kit

In stock at our local Japanese grocer are a lot of these fun kits for making your own erasers.  They are about $10 each, which is a bit more expensive than my average craft fling, so I only bought one kit to start with - sushi of course!

I'm actually quite pleased with the kit - the molds it comes with are hard plastic, which can definitely be reused for other clay or eraser projects in the future.  I'm very tempted to buy the other kits now that I know this, because really where else are you going to find a sushi mold?? Very cool.

To try this kit out, my sis was up for helping, and Sak served as the on-call instructions translator, haha.

It's really pretty simple though.  Spray the mold with some water to prevent sticking.

Roll up a lump of "eraser clay" and put it in the mold.

Lock the two mold halves firmly in place to shape the lump.

Then trim the excess clay away and remove!

Rice lumpies. Hehe.

Anyway, repeat with other colors to create your sushi, and then to "cure" your eraser, submerge it in water within the box and microwave.  Since my microwave was twice as powerful as the microwave chart given in the instructions, I halved the cooking time. (about 2 minutes for me)

By the way, I learned that the proper word for rubber "curing" is vulcanization.  Which is a pretty cool sounding word.

"Hey babe, watch me vulcanize this rubber."

@_@ Okay, maybe not.

Anyway, once everything is done, cut out the paper bits to finish the scene.

While not as pretty as the box, the finished erasers still exceeded my expectations!

 Small. Still pretty soft.  I have no idea how they'd fair as actual erasers, because why would you want to use something this cute??

There was still quite a bit of clay left over too, probably enough for one or two more nigiri pieces.

Needs some wasabi.  Also, I  would probably glue down the toppings to the rice.  While microwaving the two pressed together sort of keeps it in place, it doesn't feel like a very strong bond. Though you might like it that way, if you're one of those people at a sushi buffet that only eat the fish tops and hide the rice under an oyster or crab shell. Huhu >.>"

Overall, lovely little kit. I'll have to look at the other kinds they have available, because I think it's definitely worth it for the unique molds.