Tutorial Fairy Mushroom House

Hey there :)

Today I want to show you how to make a simple fairy house from polymer clay.

Materials:

polymer clay or air-dry clay
tube shape
(parchment) paper
x-acto knife or blade
small circle cutters
ball tool
wire brush or needle tool
(liquid clay)
wire
pliers
acrylic paint

Instructions:

Tutorial Fairy Mushroom House

Roll out some clay in the colour of your choice. I mixed several shades of brown and grey together to have some texture, however, as I messed up I had to roll it out again and the nice pattern disappeared :(



Choose a circle cutter or small bottle or something else to sculpt your house on. Cover it with a piece of paper to make it easier to remove later and tape the paper tight.

Cut your clay sheet straight and to the height you want your walls to be. Wrap it around your circle cutter and cut away any excess. Then smooth together the seams with your fingers or clay tools.

Take an x-acto knife or blade and cut out a cute door. You can trace it with a needle tool first. Keep the cut-out piece.
Cut out a small window using a very small circle cutter. Mine is one of my homemade Floraphine's Circle Cutters :) Texture with a wire brush or needle tool.

Use a bigger circle cutter to cut out the roof from a clay sheet.
You can stick a sheet of a lighter colour underneath now. I forgot to do it and did it later.

Put your circle on a ball tool to shape it. You can also try using something else that's round if you don't have one. Press the edges between your fingers to flatten them and give them and organic shape.

Here I added the white clay sheet after baking but I recommend doing it before baking.

Add texture to the underside with a needle tool and then stick it to your base and bake. You can also bake it first and then glue it on the other part.

Tutorial Fairy Mushroom House

I then prepared a smaller circle to place on top of the roof with a little bit of liquid clay as I wanted a little swirl on top.



Place it on top and shape it. Of course you can also add this earlier in the process but I was worried of losing the shape so I prebaked the parts for 10 minutes.


Smooth out all the seams and shape the top into a point by twisting it between your fingers.


Now onto the door. You can of course just leave the opening like that or add the door back in with a small hinge. To do this, first roll a little snake of clay and place it next to the opening with a little bit of liquid clay and smooth it out. Pierce a hole into its top. Bend a small piece of wire with some pliers and stick it into the side of the door (see picture). Make sure it fits into its hole and that it's possible to twist the door.

Here is what it should look like.

For some dots on the mushroom you can use pieces of clay in several sizes. To make them organic, rip the clay and flatten it with your fingers. You can of course make them totally round but I like an organic shape :)


Then bake your piece according to the instructions on your clay package.
To add some more dimension, you can give it a wash of dark paint. I used dark brown with a lot of water and brushed that onto the hole mushroom.
Wipe away the excess and that's it.


I put on a thin layer of varnish to protect the paint as I wanted to place it into a small garden.

Here is what it looks like in its new area. It sits in a glass bowl :)

Tutorial Fairy Mushroom House

So what do you think? Could you follow or do you have any questions? Are you gonna make one yourself? :)

I hope you like it :)

See you soon

Tutorial Bird House Decoration

Hello there :)


Today I want to show you how you can decorate a bird house for spring :)
I had a small wooden bird house which I got really cheap and decorated that with leaves and flowers.

Materials:

wooden bird house
polymer clay
leaf cookie cutter
(flower cutter)
needle tool
roller or pasta machine
liquid clay

Instructions:

Tutorial Bird House Decoration

Here a picture of the bird house I used.















We will start with the roof which will be covered with leaves. You can draw them on in pencil as a guide if you like. Mix several shades of green to make it more interesting and then roll out each colour into a thin sheet. Using a cookie cutter in a leave shape cut out your leaves from each sheet. You can of course also cut them by hand or create your own cookie cutter like I did. I showed you how to do this in this tutorial.




After you have cut out your leaves, take each into your hand and using thumb and finger press all around the sides. This is to remove the sharp edges and to flatten it so the sides look thinner and more leave-like.

You can then use a leave mould to texture your leaves by pressing them into it. If you don't have one, you can either take a real leaf and press your clay leaf in or you can simply add veines with a needle tool or a tooth pick.

Then start placing your leaves onto the roof. Take some liquid clay and put a line of it at the bottom of the roof.













Position the first row of leaves. You can overlap then a bit if they don't fit next to each other. Make sure you interchange the colours. 

Add row after row of leaves, always placing the leaves into the gaps of the previous ones and overlapping them a bit. Don't worry about small gaps too much. We can cover them with paint later on.

Once you reach the top, start at the other side of the roof. When you're finished with that you'll probably have a gap at the top. Cover that with another row of leaves but this time position them horizontally. This way everything is nicely covered.





Now onto the rest of the house. You can add big or small flowers or anything you like. I made a big flower at the back, one around the hole at the front and a meadow with small ones at the bottom of the house.

Tutorial Bird House Decoration

For the daisy it's probably best to sketch out where you want your leaves and the flower to know where everything goes. Roll out a thin sheet of white clay.









Then you can use a cookie/ fondant cutter like I did or simply cut out the petals by hand one by one. Flatten the edges like you did with the leaves.






You first need to place down your leaves with liquid clay and then the flower on top. Position the flower or the first layer of petals where you want them using liquid clay underneath.
Texture them with a needle tool by adding lines to the petals, so they look more organic.





Cut out another flower/ more petals and flatten the edges. Create a second layer of petals, making sure that the top petals are in the gaps of the first layer.

Condition some yellow clay and roll it into a ball, flatten it with your fingers and check if it fits into the middle of the flower. Texture it with a tooth pick/ needle tool by making little holes. Then place it into the flower's centre.



For the blue flower around the house's bird hole, simply cut out small circles and cut them in half.
Add liquid clay around the opening and place your petals on. You can overlap them a bit if you like. If you're not sure if they fit into a row, you can also try out the arrangement without liquid clay first and then attach them once you're sure.
To make the flat bottom of the petals fit the circular hole, simply drag them a bit with your fingers.
Cut away any excess on the inside of the hole if you have any overlap.

Now the bottom of the house. If you want a moss-like texture, use your several green shades and put pieces of them on the bottom of the bird house, which you have covered with liquid clay. Be sure to place on the colours in an irregular pattern.



Once you have covered everything, start texturing with your needle tool/ tooth pick. To create the moss texture, you'll need to scratch the surface by making circular movements on your clay. Circle, circle, circle until the clay has this bumpy surface, the colours also blend through this technique nicely. Press down any loose parts with your fingers.


To create grass on the side of your house you can either use a quick technique and cut out zig zag grass or like me, invest some more time and roll out your green clay into very thin snakes and cut pieces of different lengths. Roll the top of each blade of grass into a point. Spread on liquid clay and then position your grass pieces. Make sure you interchange the colours and that the blades of grass are not too straight and regular and overlap them.


For small the small flowers, roll your desired colour into a thin snake and cut pieces of the same size from it. For the daisies roll them into little logs and flatten them. Place them into the spot where you want your flower and arrange them in a circle. Add a yellow centre and texture with a needle tool. For round petals, roll the small pieces into balls and flatten them. Arrange them and add a centre.

Add as many flowers as you like and then bake the whole bird house according to the instructions on your clay package.

You can then use some acrylic paint to cover up any wood you don't want to be seen. For example I wanted the roof and the base of the house entirely green. For this, paint all the gaps with green, also underneath the roof and underneath the house's base. You can use several shades of green if you like. To add some more dimension you can also brush on some watered down paint into the leaf veins and the low parts of the moss. Use a darker colour for this like really dark green, brown or even black. Wipe away the excess paint from the high spots with a paper towel or wipe it with nail polish remover after it has dried.

Glaze your house if you'd like to give it shine or leave it like it is to keep it matt.

Here it is, completely finished :)

Tutorial Bird House Decoration

Tutorial Bird House Decoration

Tutorial Bird House Decoration

To hang it you can screw in a hook at the top if you like. Mine is just for decoration and stays inside.


What do you think of this? Do you like it? Let me know if you have any questions and show me your recreations :)


See you soon

Tutorial Easter Eggshell Mosaic part 2

Hey there :)

Now onto part two of our egg shell mosaic. You can read about part 1 here.

Materials:

boiled egg

clay

roller or pasta machine

blade or x-acto

clay tools

acrylic paint

wire

pliers

eggshells

liquid clay or glue

(gold marker)

varnish

Instructions:

Tutorial Easter Eggshell Mosaic part 2

First boil your egg for about 10 minutes to harden it.

If you're using air-dry clay you could also use a plastic egg or if you can get your hands on it, a wooden egg.

However, I wanted to try it with a real one.

Roll out a sheet of clay as evenly as possible. Cut one side straight and start wrapping your egg, cut off the excess clay and smooth the ends together.

Then pinch the clay together at the top and bottom like on the photo. Your egg should sit nice and tight in there.

Cut away the excess clay. This works nicely with scissors, too. Then smooth out all the seams.

Cut around the middle of the egg as straight as possible. make a light indent first, so that you can correct the line if it's not straight all the way around. Then cut deeper and smooth out any irregularities.

Bake or let dry depending on your clay.
Then remove your creation from the real egg. With polymer clay, you can use a blade to carefully part both. With air-dry clay you should do it before it has fully dried. Carefully twist and turn the egg to remove it and then pull.

Here is how I made the hinge. The upper piece is one wire loop with two side pieces and the other has two loops and two side pieces. Make sure that there's enough space between the loops so that the upper part fits into it.

Glue the hinges on your egg, making sure that the loops hang a bit over the edge and that the upper one fits into the lower one.

Try if it works by feeding a head pin through all three loops before the glue is completely dry.

You can also use liquid clay and bake it again.

I painted mine black to fit my pendant.

This time I decided to draw on my design by hand instead of using a template. But you can do it however you like.

Then start gluing on your eggshells. Put the glue on one area at a time and then place down the little egg pieces.

I used a super glue that doesn't dry instantly, so I had a couple of seconds to move everything around.

Here my next layer of eggshells.

On the upper half I decided to have some flowers. Here you can see how I made them.

I also added three small balls of clay as feet and a flower on top, which I decided to omit later.

I also painted the borders of the egg gold with a marker.

Finally glaze your whole piece to protect the eggshells.

Put a head pin through the hinge and then you can use your egg as decoration or to store pretty stuff inside.

Here some pictures of my finished project :)

Tutorial Easter Eggshell Mosaic part 2

Tutorial Easter Eggshell Mosaic part 2

And that's it. Do you like it? Let me know :) Send me pictures if you recreate this :)

Don't forget to check back on Sunday for an update on part 1 :)

See you soon

Tutorial Hearts and Flowers Decor

Hey everyone :)

To get some spring into your home I want to show you how you can create some ornaments out of clay that you can assemble into a nice piece of decor.

Materials:

paper
pencil
scissors
air-dry or polymer clay
stamps, texture sheets or nice lace
clay tools
empty refill or tooth pick
daisy cutter
wire brush/ needle tool
yellow paint

Instructions:

Tutorial Hearts and Flowers Decor

For your hearts you first need to create a template (unless you have a heart-shape cutter you'd like to use).
Draw out a long heart on a piece of paper. Fold the paper along the middle of the heart and decide which side of the heart you like better. Hold that side upwards and cut out your heart keeping the paper folded. This way you'll have an even shape.












It's prettiest to make a big and a small one.











Roll out a sheet of clay, not to thinly. You can use air-dry or polymer clay, it doesn't really matter. Place on your paper template and press it a bit, so it transfers onto the clay. Cut out several hearts, I've made three of each size.








Smooth out the edges of the heart with your fingers (and water) and make a hole at the top to hang it, either with a toothpick or and empty refill.










Choose some nice textures, like lace, a texture sheet or stamps and imprint them onto your hearts. Here I've stamped two with my texture sheet and one with lace.





For the bigger hearts I used several stamps which you can get really cheap on eBay or AliExpress. Stamp them into several spots as you like it.

Tutorial Hearts and Flowers Decor

Now onto the flowers.
For those I used my daisy plunger cutter. Of course you can also draw a template like you did for the hearts.











Roll out some clay and press your cutter in and wiggle it a bit so it cuts right through. Then press down the plunger to impress the design.
If you're using a template, you can add a design with your needle tool/ tooth pick.







Especially, if you're using air-dry clay your edges will probably be quite rough, you can smooth them with your fingers dipped into water.










Create holes with a needle tool/ tooth pick/ refill to hang the flowers. Don't make them too small if you want to use a bigger cord.












With a wire brush/ needle tool/ tooth pick texture the inside of the flower by making little holes.












Let the flowers dry and then paint the insides yellow.















You can string your creations and hang them on branches for example or create something like this:

Tutorial Hearts and Flowers Decor

For another decor idea check out my Clay Feather Tutorial :)

So do you like those? I hope you try it out yourself. Send me pictures if you do :)
Let me know if you have any questions :)


See you soon

Tutorial Simple Clay Feathers

Hello :)

Today I want to show you how you can make very simple feathers for spring or summer. You can use them as decoration and hang them on branches or as gift tags or whatever you can imagine :)

Materials:

air-dry or polymer clay
roller
x-acto knife or blade
tooth pick
small bottle


Instructions:

Tutorial Simple Clay Feathers

First roll out some clay very thinly and sketch out the shape of your feather. Feathers come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, you can check out some pictures on the internet or use a real one as a guide. Basically, it's a sort of leaf shape.




Cut it out and smooth down the edges to make them thinner.





Now use a blade to texture your feather. First make a line from one corner to the other which serves as a guide. Then make small lines very close to each other and in a sort of diagonal way. Make them on both sides of your first line.




Then roll out a very thin snake of clay, make sure that it's thinner on one side.




Place your thin snake of clay in the middle of your feather, where you had made your first line and cut of the end. With a tooth pick make a hole into the end of the 'stem' to hang it later  and then place the feather onto a small bottle for drying or baking.




And that's it! Really simple but pretty :)
You can also paint them in several colours to give them a bohemian look for summer.
I'll show you how to do that in summer time :)

If you want, you can simply string them or wrap some colourful yarn or cord around it.
Here is how I did it:

Tutorial Simple Clay Feathers

I used some cotton yarn which I dyed brown with tea as I only had this whitish colour at hand. I just put some water in a pan, added a strong black tea and put the yarn in. I let it boil for a couple of minutes and then turned off the heat and just left it in there for 2 hours or so with the lid closed. I rinsed and dried it and that's it.


To attach the yarn to your feather, thread it through the hole, leaving a bit of excess (more than on the picture, to make it easier to tie)




Wrap the long end around your feather a few times.



Take a needle (or a pieces of folded wire like I did) and thread your long end of the yarn into it. Poke it through the last wrap on your feather and pull tight.


Here it is pulled through. This secures your wrappings.
Tie two knots with your short ends.
Now you have it secured.



To make a loop to hang it, you need to tie it again. For this, take the two ends in one hand and fold the loop. Take the loop into the other hand and tie a knot with the ends and the loop. Tie another one to secure it.
Use a bit of super glue on the wrappings and knots to secure everything permanently and that's it. You can hang them now :)

Tutorial Simple Clay Feathers

And what can you do with them?
I strung them onto some more yarn together with some daisies from clay and some wooden beads and hung them on hooks from the ceiling :) Or you can hang them on nice branches if you like :)
By the way, I'm gonna show you how you can make those flowers soon :)

Tutorial Simple Clay Feathers

So do you like these feathers? Are you gonna make them, too? And what would you use them for? Let me know :)

See you soon

Tutorial Needle Tool

Hi there :)

Today I want to tell you how you can make a very simple needle tool. You don't need a lot for this and it's very easy.

Materials:

needle or pin
handle (e.g. from old paint brush)
clay

(wire)

Instructions:

Tutorial Needle Tool

Choose an old handle for example from a of paint brush and a sewing needle or a pin like I did. 

If you're using a sewing needle, you can take a piece of wire and thread it into the eye of the needle and then wrap it around the handle to connect them.

If you have a pin, just place it above the handle. It will hold because of its head once you wrap it woth clay.

Now just use a bit of clay and wrap it around both your needle/ pin and handle. This can be a bit tricky with the pin but it works. Although I guess the needle and wire version is sturdier.

Roll the clay part between your hands to even it out. Smooth out any bumps with your fingers and that's it!

Of course you can also use very colourful clay and for example cover the whole handle. You can blend together complementary colours until they show a marble effect. You can also mix a wood texture. See my faux wood tutorial for this.

I chose to keep it simple with this one but here a picture of some other tools I made. The small one is a nail I covered to use for texturing and the other one, I just found among my stuff. I don't know if it was for sewing or anything but it's an amazing sculpting tool since I added the handle :)

Tutorial Needle Tool

I hope this is useful for you. Let me know, if you have any questions :)

See you soon :)

Tutorial Floraphine's Circle Cutters

Hello friends :)

As promised I want to teach you how you can make some really cool and cheap circle cutters from very few materials.

I'm really proud that I came up with this idea after a lot of thinking of what you could use as very small circle cutters.

I think (and hope) no one has done this before but correct me if I'm wrong. I call them 'Floraphine's Circle Cutters' :)

So my secret is: I use the metal parts of paint brushes!

Materials:

old/ cheap paint brushes of graduated sizes

pliers

(hair dryer)

clay

Instructions:

Floraphine's Circle Cutters

You can use some of your of brushes for this (I'm sure many of you have ruined brushes you didn't clean soon enough ;). Or you can buy those really cheap brushes, maybe you already have them and then you noticed that they shed hair... like me :D. Those on the picture were 1€.

Remove the metal parts with two sets of pliers (one in each hand). If it doesn't work right away, use a hair dryer and heat up the metal (use pliers, it gets really hot!) for 1min. This way the glue inside is loosened.

Here all of my removed metal parts. I used paint brushes in different sizes to get graduated cutters.

To be honest, they don't really look nice :D I tried removing the hair, too but the glue was too strong on some of them. Don't worry if this happens, just cut off the hair. You can keep it for later projects, for adding hair to sculptures for example. Also don't toss the handles! You can make clay shaping tools from them :) (I'll show you soon how).

To hide the horrible end part (where the hair was) you can cover it with clay. I used air-dry clay here but polymer clay works also of course.

You can make it pretty by adding cane slices or by blending together several colours or just use one colour. Of course you can paint them later.

Take a ball of clay and push it into the end of the cutter.

Smooth it out and push it to the front part, making it thinner there and thicker at the end.

Let dry/ bake and you're finished.

If you get any cracks through baking or drying (the metal might expand) you can apply super glue into the cracks. 

You can also cover the finished circle cutters with colurful clay after baking.

I have painted mine white and then added numbers and polka dots. The smallest one has the number 1, the biggest is number 6. To recreate this, dip a tooth pick in acrylics and paint on the number. For the polka dots, I used the end of a bigger skewer.

Floraphine's Circle Cutters

So that's all! Easy right? 

And what can you do with them? 

Floraphine's Circle Cutters

You can cut the circles and use them in several ways, like layering colours, using them for scales on dragons, putting polka dots on anything, make rings by using two cutters.

One little thing: You'll need to stick the clay sheet from which you want to cut circles onto your work surface 8by pressing it down; I work on tiles or glass), so that the circle doesn't get stuck in the cutter, as it's no plunger cutter and the hole doesn't go through to the other side. 

You can also use the cutters to texture your clay by not pushing them in all the way.

I really hope this helps you and you can understand my instructions. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

If you want to know how to make cutters of another shape, see this blog post.

See you soon

Tutorial Clay Cutters

Hello there :)

As promised I want to share with you how I make my own cookie cutters for clay.

Especially if you want to buy small cookie cutters which are especially designed for clay, it can get quite expensive. 

Materials:

metal (from a barbecue tray, cake pan or old cookie cutter)
old scissors
ruler
glue or soldering equipment
(template)
(pliers)

Instructions:

You'll need some kind of metal for your clay cutters. I tried using old tea lights but I found that the material is really thin and bends too easily. For this project I used an aluminium barbecue tray. You can also try shapable cake pans or something similar, like a soda can (be sure to fold over the metal at the top if it doesn't have a folded edge already, so you don't cut yourself).
The most sturdiest solution would be to cut up old cookie cutters you don't like. This metal is perfect for keeping its shape but on the other hand hard to bend and to glue together.
So maybe start with softer metal and for the cutters you use the most, create a sturdier one.

Tutorial Clay Cutters

This is my barbecue tray. For this project you will need to cut off the border. You can do this with an X-acto knife or old scissors. Don't use your best cutting equipment for this, it will get dull.

Cut a piece from the border first and then cut the sharp side straight if it's wonky. You can use a ruler for this. This will be the cutting part and the folded part at the top is where you hold it.
You can measure everything out if you want to and even create a template so you know how much material you need.

For a leaf cutter you'll need to measure twice the length of the size of leaf you want plus about 50 mm.

Fold your strip of metal in half, leave a bit of excess to glue it later. Flatten the folded edge down with your fingers or using pliers. Then fold over the leftover part on top to glue it later.

Now take your piece and using a knife or anything else that's thin, push it into the 'pocket' you have created. Carefully wiggle  it, so that it opens up in the middle. Bend it like a leaf with your fingers or by pushing in larger tools to shape it. The shape doesn't have to be perfect on top, only the bottom needs to be straight for cutting.
Now bend up the folded over piece a bit so that you can add glue and then bend it back and press together. Add a paper clip or some sort of clasp to help it stick together while drying. You can also solder it if you have the supplies for it.

Tutorial Clay Cutters

For a square you need to make sure that all the sides are the same size. It's best to measure that out with a ruler. For a square of 3cm, measure four times 3cm on your metal strip and a smaller section for gluing it together.

Then fold into a square, glue together and add paper clips or something else to hold it.

This is what it should look like after the glue has dried.

The same procedure applies for a triangular shape, you'll only need to divide it into three parts.

Here you can also see the folded over edge much better. (It's hard to take photos of the shiny metal :D)

Of course you can also make asymmetric shapes like this. If you have a template you can place your strip of metal on it, curve it as you need to and make a bend with your fingers or pliers where you need to.

Glue it together again. 

Here also a picture with the paper clips.

Those are the cutters I've created above:

Tutorial Clay Cutters

And this is my leave cutter made from an old cookie cutter. It's of course much more precise and doesn't bend out of shape as easily:

Tutorial Clay Cutters

Before you go running to make circle cutters yourself, let me tell you, that there is a wide range of things you can use which are circular. For example I use caps of spray bottles, straws, empty refills (if you want to make a hole and don't need the cut-out) and all kinds of stuff. I saw people use those cable clamps, so-called bootlace ferrules. Here a blog post in French about them. So if you know an electrician, he might give you one of each size. However, if you want to buy them, you'll always need to buy big packs of them... Which can be expensive, especially because you basically only need one of each size... Might be the same price as if you buy kemper cutters, depending on where you live. So what to do? Share a pack with all your clay friends? Sure. But if you're the only one of your friends with a quirk for clay...

That's why I came up with another idea :)

Check out my next tutorial for this.

So what do you think? Does this help you with your clay projects? If you have any questions, let me know.

See you soon

Tutorial Stamped Oriental Mirror

Hello :)

Today I want to show you how you can decorate a plain mirror with stamped pieces of clay to make it look fabulous :) I found an old hand mirror which needed a make over. I had previously watched a tutorial which inspired me to do something similar.

Materials:

mirror

polymer clay
stamps

square cookie cutters
cutter
pasta machine or roller
metallic powder or eye shadow

Instructions:

I used a small mirror which was already framed but I didn't like the colour. It was plastic but I didn't worry about that as I lately have discovered that you can bake most plastics at a low temperature (100° C). It really depends on the type. If you're worried, bake your mirror in advance before adding clay to test if it melts.

Stamped Oriental Mirror

Roll out your clay evenly. It's best to use a pasta machine for this but you can also put even pieces of cardboard at the sides of your clay sheet and roll over it.

Take square cookie cutters to cut from your clay sheet or cut it by hand.






Then choose a nice stamp and stamp a design. You can get them really cheap on eBay or AliExpress.
Try to stamp exactly into the middle of your cut-out.

Dip your finger in metallic powder or eye shadow, tap off the excess and rub the powder carefully on your stamped piece. I used gold and copper here.

Spread liquid clay on the back of your mirror and place on your first piece.

Repeat this process of creating stamped squares and rectangles. You might need to measure out the remaining space on your mirror to know how big you need your pieces.

You can also stamp first and then cut it out. That's what I did here using a texture sheet from Fimo.
I impressed the design, cut it out and then rubbed on copper powder.

You can also make more designs in your clay using the tools you have.

For the rectangle I used two stamps and then pushed different-sized dotting tools in and also my rigid blade. You can use tooth picks and pen caps and what else you have. You can also texture by pressing in sand paper.

Then rub on your shimmery powder again. For this rectangle I used white clay and several shades of blue eyeshadow. You can layer the colours to your liking.

The black rectangles and the small brown one were also textured with the Fimo sheet and the black square with a stamp.











After you have placed on all of your rectangles and squares you can cover the borders as well. For this, roll out a thin sheet of clay in the colour of your choice and measure your borders. You can do this with a ruler or simply by pressing the side of your mirror lightly into the clay. This leaves marks which show you where to cut. Create strips which you place around your mirror. Then take your shimmery powder again and add some shine to the borders as well.

Bake it according to the instructions on your clay package and let it cool slowly leaving it in the oven so you don't get any cracks. Glaze your mirror after it has cooled down. 

So that's it. What do you think? Do you like it?

Stamped Oriental Mirror

Stamped Oriental Mirror

Of course you can use any stamps you have, I just wanted to give it that oriental look. Or if you don't have stamps, just make a design with tooth picks and what you can find. You can create flowers and pretty designs just by pressing in a couple of tools. Or make your own stamps from clay (see my tutorial where I make a leave stamp)

I will also show you soon how you can shape your own cookie cutters soon, so make sure you come back :)

See you soon

Tutorial Faux Wood

Hey :)

Today I want to teach you my version of a faux wood texture. It's really easy to make and looks amazing. I'll also show you what you can do with it.

Materials:

polymer clay (several brown shades)
roller or pasta machine

for the beads:
(round) cookie cutter
needle tool
(wire brush)

Instructions:

Tutorial Faux Wood

Choose several shades of brown clay. You don't have to buy them all, you can just mix them with white or black and with each other. Or even mix contrary colours (like green and orange).

Roll them into logs of different thicknesses. Make sure, you have several of one colour.




Assemble them randomly into a big log. It shouldn't be a regular pattern but also make sure that the same colours are not next to each other.




Roll the log between your hands and your work surface to make it longer.






Fold it in half and roll it again.






Repeat until the lines of colours have become thinner and more wood like. But don't mix it it too much.





Roll it out with your rolling pin or through your pasta machine.
If you like it that way you can stop here or fold it in half and roll out again until you like it. Make sure that you always fold it in a way that the lines are on top of each other to retain the pattern.



Here my clay sheet is finished, I had rolled it through my pasta machine twice.







To use your new faux wood sheet you can make beads for example. With a small cookie cutter (doesn't have to be round) cut out circles.
Fold those and roll them into balls between your hands, carefully pressing them a bit while rolling, so that they become evenly round.


Pierce through them with a needle tool (or needle). Make sure you do this from both sides to create an even hole. If you haven't done this before, you can practice with scrap clay.
Depending on how you want to use your beads later, you can enlarge the hole with a toothpick (or bigger needle tool). I recommend using a thinner one first, so the clay doesn't crack, when you push it through. you can always enlarge it afterwards. I also bake them on toothpicks so they don't roll around.
You can add some more texture with a wire brush or needle tool if you like. Make sure you do this along the lines you have already in there.

I also made a pendant with a larger cookie cutter.
For that cut out two circles from your wood sheet. You can put some scrap clay inbetween them to make it thicker or just stack them without it. To be able to hang it, add one or two jump rings in between the layers. Blend the seams with your tools or fingers.
If you have some small stamps you can stamp into the clay to add some interest. Then texture it with a wire brush or needle tool along the lines.




Bake everything according to the instructions on your clay package.

To make your pieces look aged and even more wooden, you can cover them with diluted black paint and then remove the excess with nail polish remover. I bought some nail polish remover pads. With those it is really easy to do.

And here is the result. It looks a bit grungy and weathered and really organic.

Tutorial Faux Wood

A tutorial on how to use these beads and pendant will follow soon. Do you like this tutorials? Leave me a comment below if you want to :)


See you soon