Dollhouse Miniature Cornucopia

 

Watch the video here.

 

 

This week we are making a project that I have always wanted to make in real life but never got around to it. I used to host all the holiday dinners and almost every year about the day before Thanksgiving I would think “oh, I should have made a cornucopia.” but by then it was too late. So I would think I'll make sure I make one next year. As you can probably guess the next year was an exact repeat of the above internal discussion I had. So when I got a request recently for some fall table centerpiece ideas I knew what I had to make.

This is a fairly easy project and only uses one color of clay, white. It can be any brand you have on hand. We are not going to be trying to do really intricate details so a soft clay is fine.

I actually made up two practice cornucopias to prepare for this video and I figured out the easiest way to get and keep the correct shape was to make a kind of blank to build on. For this we just need to make a cone shape and curve the end the way we want our cornucopia to sit. They can either sit with the point in the back going up (the way I did mine) or to the side. I also found adding a thin “collar” of clay to form the open end is a necessity too. 

Once you have these pieces put together and know how you want it to sit, flatten the bottom so it will sit nicely when it is done. Now this piece (our blank) needs to be partially baked, I baked mine at 250°F for 10 minutes. This won't cure the clay all the way through just set it enough to keep working without misshaping it.

Once cooled we are going to add the snakes of clay that will be the visible “bread” our cornucopia is made from. I tried to keep these at ⅛” to keep them in scale.

 Carefully wrap them around the cornucopia ending just a bit before the open end. 

Try to keep all of the joins between the snakes on the bottom (flat side) of the cornucopia.

Now make 3 more long snakes the same ⅛” diameter and make a long braid. Then add this to the open end, carefully using it to cover the collar we added.

Now we get to play with chalks to color our bread and make it look all “golden-brown and delicious” like the chefs on TV say. We start with a warm yellow gold color then move to a reddish brown and then just a bit of a darker brown. The first color is used the most with each layer after being a bit less. Don't overdue the dark brown or it will look like it spent too much time in the oven. (unless that's the scene you are going for)

 

Once you are happy with the amount of color you have added it is time to bake the cornucopia this time we are going to bake at 250°F for about an hour. We need to cure the clay all the way through to the middle of that blank we made in the first step. Once baked allow to cool to room temperature before handling.

Now you just need to add some fruits, flowers, or leaves to create the centerpiece for fall in your dollhouse.

I have a lot of fruit tutorials on the channel here is a link to the playlist of most of them. I may have missed a few when I put the list together.

If you make a cornucopia from my tutorial be sure to share a picture with me. I love to see what you make. Also let me know what you want to see tutorials of in future videos.

As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.