Wednesday 30 March 2016

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

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