Most weeks I at least have an idea of what I am going to make on the Saturday video by Monday at the latest. This week inspiration just wasn’t coming. It wasn’t until I was putting away my groceries on Thursday morning that I came up with this week’s project. I had purchased an Anaheim pepper to go in my dinner for that night and as I was cleaning it I decided it would be the perfect project for this week. So here we are.
The first challenge was to come up with some clay in the correct color. I knew that I wanted at least try to show you how to do the sliced peppers today and for that I needed to have at least part of my clay blend be a firmer brand of clay. If I had used all Sculpey III I would probably not been able to get the slices to work today. I talk a bit more about that when I get to the part about the slices.
For the color I started with Fimo in Tropical Green, it wasn’t the right green but it was the closest I had in Fimo. Then I added some yellow (Sculpey III) and then a bit of white, I still wasn’t getting the color I wanted so I added a bit of Sculpey Camouflage Green. I had planned to mix the clay on camera but my daughter called and she talked for over an hour so I chose to mix it off camera so I could get the video filmed.
Since I had the pepper in front of me it was easy to get not only a good look at all sides of the pepper, a really good look at the color and also I could see how it looked in my hand so I could try it in the doll’s hand to get a better idea of how it should look.
The first part of the pepper we need to make after getting the color correct was to make the stems. To do this just make a really thin snake of the clay. Lay it on your baking surface so that there are lots of curved areas since the stems on these peppers are rarely straight. Bake this snake for 10 minutes at the temperature your clay requires. If you are mixing brands of clay like I did use whatever is lowest temperature listed on the packages.
While this snake is still warm from the oven cut it into small pieces.
Now we are going to make the peppers. For this roll a snake about 1/8” in diameter and cut into segments somewhere between ½” and ¾” long. Don’t measure every one of them just get them in this range, peppers are not all the same size.
Use some TLS (Translucent Liquid Sculpey) on the end of the stems to attach them into wide end of the peppers then shape the peppers so that the stem end is the widest and they gradually go to an almost point at the other end. Use a tool to make some lines on the peppers and curve some of them.
Bake the peppers at the temperature for your clay for 10 minutes and allow to cool.
Now we can make the pepper slices. For this I knew I needed my clay a bit firmer than it was so I flattened out some of what was left and pressed it down onto a piece of white paper and left it there overnight. This allowed some of the oil in the soft clay to leach our and left the clay firmer. This is something I am going to talk more about in tomorrow’s Clay 101 video so be sure to come back and check that video out.
I took some of this clay and added a bit of white clay, about 1 part with to 3 parts of the green. I wanted to be able to see the difference in the two colors but I didn’t want to add so much white that it softened my clay back up.
The thing other than the clay we will need for the pepper slices is some 20 gauge floral wire, mine is the type that is coated with a green paint and if you have that it is better since sometimes the un-coated wire can react with the clay and cause discoloration. You will need 3 short pieces of this wire, mine are probable 3” or 4” long.
Roll our some of the lightest color very thin then lay two of the pieces of wire side by side on the clay, then lay the 3rd piece on top of them.
Then carefully wrap the clay around the wires trying not to have a huge overlap.
Next roll out the darker green clay (the color we used for the peppers) again very thin, roll this around the outside of the light green clay.
Again try not to overlap the edge very much. Gently roll the bundle in your had to firm it up but try not to squish it too much. Bake this for 10 minutes at the temperature recommended for your clay.
Immediately after removing from the oven carefully pull the wires out of the clay tube. The first one is always the hardest. It does help to have a small pair of pliers on hand to assist you in this. Just be careful to not damage the clay tube.
As soon as the wires are removed carefully slice the tube into pepper slices. This also needs to be done with the clay is still very warm from baking. If the clay cools down all the way it is not only harder to cut but it is more apt to crumble.
When I started the video I was hoping this stage would be successful but I wasn’t sure. Some clays work much better for this type of application that others. Because of the amount of the softer Sculpey was not positive I would be able to form the tube over the wires, get the wires removed and slice it. In general you need a firmer clay to do these things which is why first I make sure that at least most of my clay was Fimo and secondly I left it overnight on the sheet of paper to firm it up.
If your clay does cool off and starts to not cut nicely try putting it back in the oven and baking it for about 5 minutes to warm it up again. This usually will work to soften the baked clay enough that you can successfully cut it.
Once you have as many peppers and slices give them a very thin coat of Satin Mod Podge and allow to dry.
The 3 slices in this picture were each from a different batch so you can see they will vary a bit.
And now the dolls in the dollhouse have some fun peppers to cook with.
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.
You are so talented!
ReplyDelete