Gingerbread Men Ornaments

It might be a little bit too early to be thinking about Christmas, but I've got some Christmas craft fairs coming up so I need to think ahead.

In addition to the things I make for Etsy, I've been adding to my stock with some seasonal items.

This gingerbread man ornaments is made out of Sculpey - a flat base with the features added on - and then painted with acrylic.

I also made some smaller gingerbread men.

Gingerbros, if you will.

For these I painted on the features, using the tiniest brush, instead of making the bits with Sculpey first, as I thought that would get a bit fiddly.

I love how these turned out and I'm looking forward to seeing what people think of them [whether they buy them or not!]

My first craft fair of the season is this Saturday.

For anyone local reading pop down to the Letchworth Settlement between 10:00 and 4:00 for the Garden House Hospice Arts, Craft & Design Fair.

Mini Flower Pot Makeover

Here's how I transformed this boring little plant pot into something fancier.

This was a bit of a trial and error project as I started by making circles of Sculpey and adding them to the pot a few at a time but I was finding it difficult to get perfect circles and to cover up the join. 

Then I tried just rolling a long thin bit of Sculpey and looping it over the pot making lots of circles.

I stopped aiming for perfect circles and decided to go for a web/honeycomb/structure of bone situation.

I smoothed the Sculpey to get rid of the joins which kept making the whole thing too big for the pot.

I baked the pot for 10/15 minutes and then added more Sculpey where it had come away from the pot, and baked again. 

 I then sanded the Sculpey to get it as smooth as I could.

I painted the entire thing in white emulsion (which always makes me think of this song).

Initially this was all I'd planned to do but I decided I preferred it when the Sculpey was a different colour to the pot to create more of a contrast.

So I painted the holes using a cheap blue metalic poster paint, making is darker around the edges and using a sponge to wipe some of the paint away in the middle.

The blue made me think this little pot looked quite bathroom-y so maybe that's what it'll be used for.

Check out my wall

After my Scale Model  Making course I wanted to use one of the techniques I learnt so I made this wall.

Bricks I've done before, but flint cobbles? New territory time.

Here's how I did it

I took this photo by balancing the camera on my wrist. Fun fact.

The key is Sculpey!

Mark out the pattern in a lump of Sculpey.

I also molded the back of the Sculpey to fit my fingers for easy grippin'.

Once the Sculpey has been baked it's ready to imprint into the kapa-line foam.

This stuff is amazing.

When I tried the Sculpey on a test piece I may have leapt about exclaiming, 'It worked! It worked!'

I'd already stuck the foam to a piece of MDF so then I built the rest of the wall around it; the tiles on the top and the brick pillar on the end.

I painted the entire thing a mortar colour, making sure to get into all of the cracks.

Then I used a dry brush to paint the stones as this would pick up the pattern.

When I was in 6th form my Dad built a brick wall in our back garden. For that time I was pretty much an abandoned child cos he loved that wall more than me. Then my friends got in on the act and one time came over to my house just to hang out with the wall. They even brought a brick in to school dressed up like me, and said they preferred brick-Lisa (yup, we were the cool kids in school, obvs). It was a tough time.

But now I get it. I love this tiny wall like a child and I'm proud of everything it's accomplished. 

Geez, I need a job.

New necklace

When I was making the tiny furniture for my set model I had a little bit of Sculpey leftover so I thought I would make a little pendant with it.

My thought process of what to make went;

flower > heart > strawberry > fox head

Once the Sculpey had baked I painted it, attached a jump ring and hung it from a chain.

And now it's in my Etsy shop.

Check it out

And you might as well have a look at the rest of my shop while you're there.

Owl

As you saw on Sunday's post I've been using Sculpey again and this time...

...I made an owl!

I love his eyes the best.

I used a needle to put all the feather markings on the model.

Then I painted him up with acrylic paint.

Now he joins the other animal photo holders.

I'm gearing up for the Christmas craft fair season so I've been busy making to build up my inventory.

I hope these photo holders sell well!

This Week I...

This week I went to see a live screening of Swan Lake from the Royal Opera House at my local cinema.

The arts centre got given tickets for the event as it's the first of a series.

Free tickets? I'll take that.

It was my first time seeing a ballet and I enjoyed it. 

Streaming it live to a cinema worked really well and we probably got to see more than the audience at the Royal Opera House.

I finally finished reading the last of 3 books that I've been in the middle of for ages.

One of them I've had a bookmark in for over a year. I just don't read that often.

But I've been making more of an effort to take some time out to read, and now I've started reading Brad Paisley's book which I bought in New York at a Barnes and Noble on sale for $5.95.

Brad is worth more, but that's a good bargain.

I've also had the Sculpey out again, the results of which you'll see next week.

How was your week?

Photo holder friends

Remember this guy?

Well now he's got some friends.

I made two more animal photo holders out of Sculpey.

The shape of a cat is hard, but the tortoise is where it's at.

Look at this guy! He looks a little angry but I like him.

Any suggestions for what animal I should make next?

And speaking of weird look cats, who likes this teapot I had to buy for the arts centre the other day?

The grey cat's head is the lid!

Oh, the things you can find in charity shops.

Geometric beads

I've seen a few things around the internet about making geometric beads from polymer clay, so I decided to make some myself.

I started by rolling small pieces of Sculpey into balls, and then flattening the edges against a ruler.

Once I'd baked them I made the sides flatter and more angular with sand paper.

I painted the beads with silver acrylic paint and used some of them to make this bar necklace.

I can't decided if I like it better as a short or long necklace.

Thoughts?

With some of the other beads, after I'd painted them silver, I then painted them with nail varnish for a metallic look.

Oh Sculpey, you're so full of possibilities.

Photo holders

I love cute little photo holders so I thought I would try making one.

Here he is!

This little dog is made from Sculpey.

Sculpting it was kinda tricky because at first I wanted it to look like my friend's dog but that wasn't working out, so I settled for a generic dog. 

I think I may have left him in the oven for a little bit too long, but its ok because I was going to paint him anyway.

Looking good.

Now he's ready to hold a photo.

Or a business card.

Doggy knows how to represent!

Degree show tree

In addition to the house I'm making for my degree show, I'm also making a second piece that features a tree.

I've made a tree before and I was pretty proud of it -someone even bought it- which is why I thought I'd be able to successfully make another one.

Confirmation on that statement is still pending.

Here's how it's going so far.

I started with a lot of wire wrapped round a piece of wooden dowel which then branches out into..well..branches. 

I bought a whole heap (yeah, that's a technical term of measurement...) of Sculpey for this project, but only ended up using a quarter of it. More Sculpey for me!

I covered all the wire in Sculpey and I added some foil around the trunk before adding the Sculpey to bulk it out a bit.

Then, as you may know, Sculpey needs to be put in the oven to harden.

My tree only just fit in the oven! I had to take all the shelves out and was then worried that the tree would tip backwards into the flames.

The required time is between 15 and 30 minutes but when I opened the oven door after 6 minutes to check on it, a lot of smoke came out. So I thought I ought to abort the mission.

The 6 minutes was actually enough time to harden most of the branches but the trunk was still squidgy.

I put the tree back in the oven twice more with the door slightly open, but the trunk didn't get any harder.

So I gave up and went straight to painting it.

As I was painting it some of the bigger branches near the trunk started to fall apart a little bit.

Slight panic, but then I grabbed some small strips of newspaper and some watery PVA glue and papier-mached the tree Neil Buchanan style. 

The Sculpey is still squidgy under the newspaper, but at least it's not falling apart and I was able to finish painting it.

I'm not sure if the colour's exactly right yet, it's looking a bit grey, but trees aren't exactly brown. I like the texture I've got going on.