Clay fever

Somehow I manged to pick up a new crafting hobby. Actually according to my mother it's just a rekindling of an old hobby. When I was about 4 my mom had gotten tons of tools and such because I wanted to sculpt with clay. However she had to take it away when I threw a fit because the pieces weren't coming out quite as perfect as I wanted. Apparently I would not hear that at 4 I didn't have the fine motor skills to make the detailed designs I had seen. Well several years later I still faintly remember wanting to sculpt and now I have!

After a night trip out to walmart I came back with a $10 set of colored clay and $6 in grey normal clay. The colored clay has one oz pieces of 10 different colors and 2oz pieces of white and black.

All the clay is to be baked in the oven at 275 deg F for 15 min. I found out that my oven runs a bit low so I had to set it slightly past 275 deg F but not at 300 deg F.

Since I had significantly more grey clay I started with this since I remember having so many issues creating things I thought this is a good way to practice. I started by finding a tutorial for a rose and made a rose. Then another rose then a bow.

To make the bow I made tiny balls then flattened them with my finger and attached them to the rose for the petals, shaping as i go.

Next since that turned out so well I wanted to make a little Chibi girl.

This involved two balls one large than the other. The larger one for the head, slightly smaller one for the body. Then making a snake to cut the pieces of hair from. I also added a headband and a little bow for the hair. Next I cut little slits in the bottom of the body to simulate a pleated skirt.


After this I had enough courage to try with the colored clay. I decided to mix the colored clay with the grey to get slightly softer colors as well as stretch the colored clay further.

The first thing I tried was another chibi girl with curly hair and a rose on her headband. 

After her came another chibi girl with straight hair and a larger bow. I made her to resemble the lolita outfit I wore to a convention.







Then I decided to go very intricate and make a tiny tardis. I decided to make this into a necklace by butting an eye pin into it. I got quite a few of the eye pins from walmart for $2.

While I was waiting for the tardis to come out of the oven I decided I wanted to paint the grey clay pieces. All I had close by was a bunch of dollar store nail polish. So first I painted the roses red and blue, then the bows black and blue. And the little chibi girl blue for the body and headband and bow. The white nail polish over the top of the body as a shirt and the bow. Also used the white on the face. Then used the black for the hair and eyes and red for the lips.

The penny is in the middle for size comparison.
I think next I will make a necklace set as well as items to possibly try my hand at a decoden like box.