Polymer Clay Baking Test- Translucent Clay Comparison

 

Watch the video here.

I decided to grab a block of translucent clay and when I saw that Michael's has Cernit brand available I decided to get it. I then went to my YouTube channel thinking I had done a baking test of translucent clays many years ago. I was really confused to not find a video since I remember doing the test. Then I checked the blog and discovered that when I had tested the translucent clays way back in 2012 I had made it a blog post only. So today we are testing the 3 brands of translucent clay I have on hand.

I am doing the test in a similar manner to how I did the old one just subbing in the clays I have on hand today. Some of the clays are different than I had then and some of the brands have made some major formula changes in the last decade plus. So I was excited to see how this was going to turn out and if I would get similar results to what I got way back then.

The three brands of translucent clay have on hand today are: Sculpey III, Fimo, and the Cernit that I just picked up.

I mixed all three of the translucent clays with both red and black. I chose those two colors specifically for the following reasons. Red because red has a habit of color shifting more than any other color of clay I work with. And black because if we are mixing a translucent with black we want it to still be black and not change to a gray.

I did several things off camera for the test. First I marked a paper plate for my baking surface that gave me areas for each brand of clay and a spot to put the control samples of the colored clays. That way I knew I would be able to keep all the samples in the correct places and not get them mixed up.

Next I found the thinnest craft-sticks I had on hand (a slim stick from Hobby Lobby) to use as a rolling gauge. Since I only had one I cut it in half that’s why I am using the short pieces in the video.

After rolling the clay I used a small round clay cutter to cut pieces that were all the same size of each clay. And since I was so short of the Sculpey clay I cut those circles in half and used just a half circle of each clay in each test. I cut 3 half circles of each of the translucent clays and 4 each of the red and black clays. I made sure to put the pieces of clay in the correct areas of my labels paper plate.

I then mixed the samples I wanted to bake- 1 that was equal parts black and translucent and one red and translucent. I left one piece of the translucent clay plain also. In the center of the paper plate I kept on piece of each of the red and black clays.

I rolled the mixed samples out with my clay roller and the same spacers. I then baked the all the clay at the proper temperature for 10 minutes and allowed the clay to come to room temperature.

Now let’s talk about each brand individually.

Sculpey III- this one is definitely the softest of the three and the easiest to work in with the colored clay. The big downside for me is the translucent clay on its own stays somewhat beige when baked. Although this wasn’t an issue in the test with the colors that I used I think if I had used white as a third color we would have seen a difference in the baked color. Also the translucent properties are really not great. Even with the thin sample I baked there was no way I could see the black lettering on the plate through the clay.

Fimo- this was the firmest of the translucent clays and because of that it was a bit of a challenge to get it combined with the colored clay. Once mixed in it acted very nice. This translucent clay is very white when raw and keeps that white hue when baked alone. I do find it works well with pretty much any color of clay I combine it with. I could see the lettering through the plain baked sample a bit.

Cernit- this clay does have a somewhat strange texture by itself. It is almost slimy and because if that it was a bit hard to combine with the colored clays. I do like the feel of the clay once I got used to it though. It did bake up the most translucent of all the clays tested today. I think for most projects when I can get this one I will stick with it. I like how it worked in.

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.

Dollhouse Miniature Monster Windsock

 

Watch the video here.

As I was looking through some images online of Halloween decorations for real front porches I ran into several different designs of windsocks for the holiday. I remember how much fun the ghost one was that we made on the channel in the past so I decided to pick one and make it for this week’s tutorial. There were a lot of choices but the monster one was just so cute I had to go with him today. And besides it was a great excuse to play with some of the metallic paints I recently picked up.

The main part of the windsock is just a strip of medium weight card-stock that I cut to ¾” by 3” I just used some that was leftover from one of the Cricut projects we have done.

 

 

I then painted both sides of the strip with some of the Metallic Lime Green paint, of course you could use a regular lime green paint or any green color you want for this. Paint both sides of the strip and allow to dry completely.

Next we need to add the streamers to the bottom of the windsock. I like to use embroidery floss for this. For a windsock this size I like to use about 12 streamers and I cut them 3” long. This time I decided to alternate black and dark purple. The real ones had a variety of colors, some were the same green as the main part, some were black but a couple had the mix of black and purple and since purple is my favorite color I had to choose that combo. To cut the floss I wrap it around a piece of cardboard that is 3” wide then cut at each side where it bends around the cardboard. That is the easiest way I have found to cut multiples the same length.

Now wrap the painted strip around the barrel of a marker (I use a Sharpie) and mark just where the point is where it will start to overlap. We want to just add the streamers to the layer against the pen barrel.

Now lay a bead of glue to the edge of the strip at the bottom edge on that area that will be against the marker and add the streamers. This is much easier than it looks on the video if you aren’t trying to stay under a camera and can just add the pieces it is pretty quick to do. Once the streamers are in place add another bead of glue over the ends of the streamers and pat everything down so it makes really good contact with the strip of card-stock. Allow this glue to dry completely before the next step.

Start by wrapping the strip of card-stock around the marker to make it start to curve. Then add glue like I did in the video and carefully wrap the strip around the marker to create the windsock. Most of the time I find it I hold the end in place for about a minute it will stay just fine. If it wants to come unwrapped just add a small rubber band to hold it in place. (mine stayed just fine even with the paint on the surface) Allow the glue to dry.

 

Now the fun part starts we get to add the features. I like to start at the top with his hair. For this I used some of the black metallic paint but any black will work just fine. Add a narrow kind of crooked band of paint at the very top of the windsock then use something with a point (I used a toothpick) to pull down points of his hair. Then allow this dry so it doesn’t smear as we work on his face.

 

 

 

Next up add the whites of his eyes by dipping something like the handle of paint brush into white paint and making 2 nice big eye balls. Allow to dry.

 

 

 

 

 

Now for some personality. I started with a tiny dotting tool and added a mouth and a scar with the same black paint I used for the hair. Then changing to a larger dotting tool add a black dot to each eye. Where those eyes are placed will really affect his personality so think about how you want your monster to look. Now let this paint dry.

 

 

Now we can add a string to hang him up with. I just cut some of the same black embroidery floss to about 5” long and glued the very ends to the inside on each side at the top of the windsock. You can adjust the length of the string depending on where you are going to hang him.

 

 

 

 

Allow the glue to dry and he is ready to hang on the porch of the dollhouse.

 

 

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.

Dollhouse Miniature Paint Test More New Paints

 

Watch the video here.

I was checking out the Christmas craft aisle at my local Dollar Tree and found another box of holiday colored paints from Delta Ceramcoat on the shelf. I was actually looking for them this time after randomly finding the fall ones a couple of weeks ago. This time I got to the box before anyone else because the box was full! I found 6 colors of paint (3 metallic and 3 glitter) so I assume I missed a glitter color in the fall ones. I knew I had to grab one of each color and share them with all of you.

The glitter paint colors are:

 

 

Starry Silver: this is a really pretty silver glitter paint that blotted on like I did with the swatch is very pretty and sparkly. Do note that I only did the one coat I on the glitter colors. So if you blot on these paints fairly heavy they look great. This glitter is nice because all the sparkles are silver with not other colors included.

 

 

 

 

Gold Crown: again remember this is just 1 coat of the paint blotted on the area. This is a nice neutral gold color glitter again with just the gold sparkles included. Depending the base color you put this over you could get some fabulous affects.

 

 

 

 

 

Sparkling Red: this is a cooler red (just a bit on the blue side of the color range but still a red) and again just the red sparkles. Very pretty color.

 

 

The Metallic colors are:

 

 

 

Silver Bell: this silver has a slight cool (bluish) tone to it. Even the first coat of the color covered pretty well. I only did 2 coats on all the swatches this time. So for a metallic color this one has fantastic coverage.

 

 

 

Festive Gold: this is a warmer gold coming in as a close match for my golden yellow color I use a lot as an undercoat for gold paints. It is very different in tone from any of my other gold paint colors and could also be used if a brass finish was desired with a proper undercoat of a warm color. This was the most translucent of the 3 metallic colors I tested today.

 

 

 

 

Holiday Green: this is a cooler green and very pretty. As far as the opaqueness this one was in the middle of the 3 I tested today.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that Dollar Tree continues to carry these types of paints for the different holidays going forward. I will be keeping my eyes on the holiday craft aisles in the future.

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.

Dollhouse Miniature Giant Spider Halloween Decoration

 

Watch the video here.

This week I wanted to start making some Halloween decorations for the dollhouse so I spent some time looking at images of real size houses decorated fro the holiday. I kept seeing these huge spiders and I knew the dolls had to have one. I am in love with how he (she??) came out. I am sure after the dolls get past the nightmare view of the spider right outside their bedroom window they will love it too.

 

The body of the spider is simply half of a styrofoam ball. Mine was about 1 ½” in diameter and since we only need half the ball you could make a pair of spiders really easily at the same time. The other main component of the spider is just some chenille stems. I used white stems since I wanted to coat them with the same paint I am going to use on the body both so they match in color and to give a good “spider leg” texture to them I cut my legs to about 4” long so I got 3 pegs per stem so I only needed 3 stems (with a bit leftover)

When I cut my ball in half one side of it kind of flattened a bit so I decided to use this as the spider’s face. I used a bamboo skewer to poke four holes on each side of the spider body and dipped the ends of the legs into some tacky glue and inserted them into those holes. Allow this glue to dry.

Next we are going to disguise the texture of the foam ball by covering it with a layer of wrapping tissue. To do this tear some pieces of the tissue paper then brush some Mod Podge onto a small area of the ball add a small piece of the paper and brush more of the Mod Podge over it. You want to really soak the paper with the Mod Podge. Make sure to cover the top of the spider’s body. If you miss some of the flat bottom that is not so important but the part that will show needs a good coat of it. Also be sure to work some around each leg where it is attached to the body. This will blend the legs into the body and also help to hold them into the body. (we don’t want to have our spider loosing a leg at some point) Allow this to dry completely.

Once dry it is time to paint the spider. I just used some black craft paint for this. I was able to use a brush on the body but I did find that it was easiest (although very messy) to use my index finger and thumb to apply the paint to the legs. Just dip your finger/thumb in the paint and run the leg between them, much faster and I got really coverage with one coat of paint that way. Allow to dry completely.

 

I wanted to add a bit of bling to my spider so I used some purple glitter paint on the legs. It is very subtle and I might go back later and add another coat but I didn’t want to add too much. Just enough to catch the light from time to time. Allow to dry.

Next it was time to add the eyes to his face. I simply used some dots of red 3-D paint for this. I had debated trying to add glitter but in the end like the plain eyes better. Allow to dry (this type of paint takes a while to dry so let it sit at least overnight before you touch the area where his eyes are painted on.

Now it was just a matter of bending the legs and setting him place, I think he really likes the roof of the dollhouse but you could put him anywhere. And since his legs are so flexible you can use those to help anchor him in place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

Dollhouse Miniature Paint Test New Paints

 

Watch the video here.

I was walking through the Dollar Tree and checking out the new things that were out for fall and Halloween. I happened to notice a box shoved in a corner of a lower shelf that was almost empty that contained bottles of acrylic paints. The firs thing I noticed was the bottles did not look like the normal ones I see at Dollar Tree on the craft aisle. And indeed, these were Delta brand Ceramcoat paints!! I immediately grabbed the box and dug through the few bottles in it. I was able to come away with 5 bottles of brand name paints in what appear to be special Halloween colors. All for $1.25 each. I was very happy indeed and had to share them with all of you as soon as possible.

I did try to find the paints on the Dollar Tree app to see if there were more colors available but they don’t even show up on the app so I have no idea if there should be more than the 5 I got or not. I will be checking for more on each trip to the store for sure though.

Since I wanted to see what these look like I decided to do a paint test/swatch of them and share that with all of you too. I am really excited about these color and I am especially excited to get to use at least 2 of the colors soon.

To do the swatches I made a “swatch card” from some of the 140lb watercolor paper that I have been using for my paint test swatches. This time I had a piece in my scrap bin on my table and used it. It measures about 6” by 6” and I drew a grid of 2” square boxes to test the paints in. I felt the 2” size would give me plenty of room to test the paints and add the color names. And also I have plenty of room if I want to test other colors on the same card in the future.

Here is what each color looked like, all the swatches have 3 coats in the finished swatch.

 

Lime Green Metallic- like all metallic paints (at least in my experience) this one is very translucent. Even with the 3 coats it is still not as opaque as I would like so when I use this color I will need to remember to add an undercoat of a more opaque color. The metallic sheen is nice on this color but not super shiny.

 

 

 

 

Black Metallic- this color is the most opaque of the all the colors I swatched today and I can see me using this on lots of projects in the future. Anywhere I want the look of a black metal this will be my go-to color. Three coats of this color gave really good coverage.

 

 

 

 

 

Dark Purple Metallic-as far as opacity this one is the middle of the 3 tested today. I love this color and I am sure I will get a lot of use out this one as well.

 

 

 

 

 

Orange Glitter- as I expected this paint is orange glitter suspended in a clear paint base. For a complete coverage using a make-up sponge to apply it will probably give the best results. Otherwise for a light glitter haze a regular brush would be fine. All the glitter flecks are orange in color in this.

 

 

 

 

Violet Glitter- pretty much the same as the orange with just a change of glitter color. The glitter flecks are mostly dark purple with some pinkish ones sprinkled in. overall a very pretty color.

 

 

 

So are these worth the price? I think so especially the metallic ones, I can see using those in many projects year round particularly the black one and to a slightly lesser degree the purple one. The green will probably not get as much use but still fun to have. The glitter ones, I’m not sure how much or where I will use them but they are fun and I am sure they will turn up in projects from time to time.

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.

Dollhouse Miniature Pumpkin Makeover

 

Watch the video here.

 

As I was walking through the Dollar Tree the other day I saw these pumpkins hanging on the wall. They caught my eye because of the size, they looked to be perfect for the dollhouse. The color however was way too bright to look like anything close to a real pumpkin. I knew I had to try to tone down that color and use some to decorate the dollhouse porch for the season though.

 

 

The first step was to remove the wire from the bottom of the pumpkins and replace it with a toothpick to use as a handle while painting. I have my little wooden blocks to put mine in but you could also use a foam block or a chunk of pool noodle to hold yours.

For the first coat of paint I used Anita’s in Terracotta, this is a very muted orange and will tone down the bright orange and work well as a base coat under the painting technique I am going to use today. Don’t worry about this coat of paint being perfect, if a little of the bright orange peeks through that’s okay it will just add to the depth of color later.

 

I also base painted the stems with a very pale yellow paint. This will lighten them and allow the painting technique to work nicely to create the look of a dried stem on our pumpkins later.

Allow these paints to dry completely.

Now we are going to dirty up the pumpkins and accent the indentations on them. For this brush on a medium brown, I’m using some Woodsy Smoke from Anita’s. Then use a makeup sponge to blend the edges of the paint really well. I used a really small brush for this step to get the paint just in the crease part initially. When blending try to get rid of any sharp lines at the edges of the brown paint. Then allow this paint to dry completely.

Now we are going to give the pumpkin it’s color. For this I am using 3 colors of paint- the same Terracotta that we used earlier, Buttered Yam also from Anita’s, and some Vivid Orange from Folkart. You don’t need to use the exact same colors just some that are similar to these. Add a drop of each to a flat surface.

 

 

 

Then using a tiny brush add dots of the paints to the parts of the pumpkin that stick out from the indentations. I kept most of the Buttered Yam at the top of the area, the Terracotta at the bottom, and the
Vivid Orange at the middle. Then using a clean makeup sponge (the wide end) blend the colors to look like the photo. Allow to dry completely, since the paint is so thin this won’t take long.

 

 

Now we are going to tackle the stems and make them look like they are in various stages of drying out. Again we are using 3 colors of paint- the same brown we used earlier to “dirty up” the pumpkins, the same pale yellow we base coated the stems with, and Leaf Green from Ceramcoat. 

 

 

 

 

Again add a drop of each color to a flat surface and use a tiny brush to add tiny dots to the stem then using the skinny end of the makeup sponge blend the colors on the stem just like before. Try not to get these colors onto the pumpkin. When you have the look you like allow to dry completely.

 

 

 

Remove the toothpicks carefully and display your pumpkins around the dollhouse or in your fall mini scene.

 

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.

Dollhouse Miniature Neon Sign (non-working)

 

Watch the video here.

Today we are making a fake neon sign for the dollhouse or a miniature business. I was looking through a very old notebook I have that I wrote all kinds of projects in way back when I was first starting to do minis. This was at least 30 or so years ago. Back then I would go the library and check out any books or magazines they had on miniatures and take them home and read everything cover to cover. Took a lot of notes about projects I thought I might want to try to do someday when I had an idea of how to do them. This project was one of those.

When I read it the other day I was instantly intrigued this seemed too simple to work. But I am happy to report I think this could be a really fun thing to do to create some artwork for a more modern dollhouse room. I will say I would be very careful about where this is displayed since hot glue does have a tendency of melting again if it gets too hot. So keep this one out of direct sunlight. I think it will be fine in a normal room-box just don’t place it right in front of a window where the heat could melt it.

The first step in this project is to decide what your neon sign will look like. I went the easy route and just wrote the word “open” since my brain was not really in creative mode yet. I drew two parallel lines to give me the height of my letters and wrote my word all in pencil. I made my letters very blocky and simple. Then once I was happy with what it looked like I traced just the word with a black marker. This way I would be able to see it to trace over it later. I taped this to my work tile. This is my pattern.

Now I taped a small sheet of parchment paper (the stuff from the kitchen) over the top of the pattern. The tape won’t really hold it but it will help a bit. You need to work on a surface that is both nonstick and translucent so you can see your pattern.

 

Make sure you glue-gun is really heated up. I found with the one I have it needed to preheat for at least 10 or 15 minutes to get the glue to flow nicely on the lines. When I tried it sooner it was very lumpy and looked really bad. You want the glue to be dripping really well from the tip of the glue-gun. One the glue is hot it is just a matter of tracing the lines on the pattern. Keep in mind you might need to do multiple layers of glue to get a good looking line. Just take you time and go slowly. Once you have traced over all the lines on pattern make sure the glue between areas is touching. In my case I needed to make sure all my letters joined together. If there is space between them just add a small dot of glue to act as a “bridge” so that you will have one piece when you are done. Now let this cool and set up but leave you glue-gun plugged in so it stays hot.

Once the glue has hardened check to see if you have spots that are too thin or that you missed and add more glue as needed. You can do this as many times as you feel you need to until the sign looks the way you want it to look. Once you are happy let it cool all the way to room temp and you can unplug the hot glue-gun.

Now you can peel the sign off the parchment and take another look at it. If it needs to have more glue added this is the time. Go ahead and add glue to any spots you feel need it. Allow to cool again.

Once cooled use a small pair of scissors and trim the sign to remove any spots that don’t belong and also those hairy bits that hot glue always leaves.

Once you are completely happy it is time to add the color to the sign. I am using some alcohol markers made by Bic, you could use any brand of alcohol marker for this.

Turn the sign over and carefully fill in the back of the design with the marker. Skip any “bridge” areas you added to hold the sign together. I find it takes about 3 coats of ink to get a really good color. I also found letting the ind sit for a couple of minutes between coats allowed it to stay on better. I think (but I’m not sure) that what is happening is the ink is soaking into the glue.

Once the color is the way you want it you can either mount the sign on a board like I did. Or on the wall of your miniature scene.

I had planned to mount mine on black but I liked how the colors looked against the white better so that was what I went with.

For my board I cut a piece of foam-core slightly bigger than my sign, glued a piece of white paper on the front. Then I framed it with some black card-stock.

 

 

I ended up using tacky glue to attach the sign to the board.

 

Now for the almost disaster I had. I was originally going to use some super glue to attach the sign. And for most of the sign it was fine. But the spots where I put the dots of super glue on the area of the sign that was the green color instantly turned brown. I guess the super glue was reacting with the whatever that color ink was dyed with. The other 3 colors I used were fine just the green reacted. I was able to work very quickly and using a sewing pin I picked off the glue from the sign in those areas and then added more ink over the spots.

 

The sign I did on camera was the third time I traced the letters and I see a great improvement from the first one I did to the last one. With some more practice I think I could get some pretty intricate designs with this method and that could be a lot of fun.

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.