How to Make Fimo or Sculpey Cakes Doll house miniature (Polymer clay tutorial)

To see fancy versions of these cakes, check out my Polymer Clay Bakery display.








The pictures tell it all! The only thing I want to explain is about the frosting. One would think that a flat piece of clay wouldn't be able to cover the top and sides so smoothly. However, if you gently stretch and smooth out the clay, it will seamlessly cover the cake.

Fimo Tea Party

The easiest way for me to gain instant popularity is to announce a "free day" for clay. I'm always impressed by what the students come up with. Louis made this whole delicious spread.

Sarah and Abbie had a particularly brilliant and generous idea. They made several different cakes and cut them into enough pieces for each student in the class to take one home (after I baked them of course). It was their own miniature bake shop!



Check out this tutorial for miniature polymer clay tea sets.

How to Make Fimo or Sculpey Leaves

The green that comes out of the package is a pure, bright green. I remember when my teacher called it an ugly green. I couldn't understand what she was talking about. After awhile I realized that she meant it wasn't a natural green. Learning to get the colors right makes all the difference when you're trying to make your projects look realistic.

Now that I'm primarily a painter, I credit my years of mixing clay with teaching me how to get the colors right. To keep the colors from being too bright, I add a little the opposite or complimentary color on the color wheel. Besides neutralizing the colors, it's fun to keep them swirled and not blend them together all the way. In this project the twigs, the eggs, and the leaves have slightly swirled colors. The mottled effect is especially fun with fall colors!

The important thing about clay leaves is the pattern of the veins. I give all the students a piece of card stock or used gift card etc. Lines are always pressed into the clay. It doesn't work to draw the lines on because it scrapes the clay.

The last step is to twist and curve the leaves a little so that it's not completely flat.

Check out my polymer clay project tutorials on etsy!

Fimo or Sculpey Fruit / Banana

No tutorial on this one. Just a fun idea. Miniature fruit is great for both beginners and experts!

Trip to Mexico!

Soon, a dream I've had for a long time will come true! I was born in Mexico and spend many wonderful summer with my family there. However, I haven't been back in almost ten years. You can see some of my paintings of Mexico on my art blog. On Saturday I will be flying down to Oaxaca, Mexico to spend almost two weeks where we used to live! I'm planning on taking zillions of pictures of course! My mom and dad are already there. My mom is in the middle of teaching two weeks of drawing to her colleague's home-schooled children. I'll be teaching fimo classes for the last week. I'm so excited, if you can't tell!

I'm sure I'll be heartbroken to discover many changes to the beloved landscape. However, one thing that has not changed, is that certain art supplies are still inaccessible where these families live. You can read about how I learned about fimo in my post about the fimo penguins. Those of us who can access fimo and sculpy should be very grateful! I'll be bringing as much clay with me as I can.

I won't be bringing any fimo books down however, so in the coming days I hope to post a lot of fimo how-to articles for those of you who would like some extra ideas!

Picasso Lesson Plan

I designed this lesson almost two years ago when I was volunteering at a local elementary school. Each grade was to create art in the style of a famous artist. In that context it was a lot of fun because we came up with individual projects as well as a large group project. This project can be done as a painting or a coloring project.

When people think of Picasso and Cubism, many people only think of the faces and figures they have seen. I was fascinated to read this collection of articles about Picasso's Musical Instruments.

I start by handing out black line coloring pages of instruments, or I have the students draw instruments themselves. I brought
in photo references, but it would have been even better for them to have real instruments to draw from. Drawing instruments is a lot of fun! The students are often surprised to find that they can do a great job.

Next we cut out the instruments and cut them into pieces. Two or three cuts should be enough. We paste them onto a blank canvas or paper and then divide the white spaces into planes. The picture can be colored with a very limited palette like Picasso used with "analytical"cubism, or the bright colors he used later on with the transition into "synthetic" cubism.

The students can add anything else they want like music note, words, or different views of the instrument.

To make a large group project, each student colors a different instrument and glues the pieces to one shared sheet of poster board. The collective project is much more realistic to what one experiences at a rock concert or a symphony that a straightforward still shot would be.

Fimo Valentines

Check out my Valentine's Day Quilt!  It's my all time favorite!