News

I went to the gallery yesterday and dropped off some stuff. I am selling my pond cake, my beach cake, and my cookie earrings. They are pretty cheap. I am also going to be in the mini (all things miniature) show at the gallery, which is in February. I expect to have many Valentine's-themed miniatures and jewelry, which means I have to get working.

Good news. Despite the fact that I spent nearly $100 at Michaels the last time I was there (Christmas money), I plan to buy packaging supplies soon, seeing as they're sold so cheaply at The Container Store, where my mom works (40% 0ff discount). I bought miniature gift boxes for the gallery to make my items more presentable. Every second, I am getting closer to opening my Etsy shop and looking forward to it immensely. (provided all goes well; I'm still not sure about the credit card issue.)

About my cookie earrings: They're my first dangle earrings. I connected the jump rings myself in an interesting pattern. I made them as realistic as possible. There are two types of frosting: TLS with pastels and TLS with paint. TIP: put the eyepin in BEFORE you frost/ice them. I textured them with a toothbrush and used soft pastels to color them.

The beach cake: decorated with craft sand (applied with TLS and dried with a heat gun), micromarbles, pink and blue TLS, a crab, a starfish, and a shell. The blue inside cake part was blue mixed with a little white and blue micromarbles.

The pond cake: layered blues for the middle (when you look at it sideways, it looks like the duck is swimming on the water), and a duck, lily pads/frog, and a lily on top.

I've been having a bit of a problem with my resin. A lot of YouTubers do that as well as clay, so I decided to try it, but #1: I spilled it on my rug. Remember the icing endeavor? This is just a repeat, except it's on a RUG and will cost a lot of money to get removed. Also, the resin I have drying right now, the bottom is hard but the top is still runny. I'm worried I didn't get the hardener there for some reason, but I mixed it for a good five minutes slowly, like I was supposed to. Any suggestions for this problem? It reminds me of the time Cali tried her first clay woman with 'air-dry' clay and it NEVER dried. That was over a year ago. And guess what? It's still soft.

Thanks for reading, buying, waiting, and your help in advance if you choose to give your advice. Greatly appreciated.

It's tip time!

Hey everybody! Hope you had great holidays, and have a Happy New Year too! 2012, everybody! The year we're all supposed to die! I can't help feeling that something REALLY good is gonna happen on December 21, 2012. We'll see.

So, as for what's going on, I'll tell you. A lot. Thanks to everyone who's bought from the gallery, it really means a lot. I was surprised when one of my better fall scenes sold around Christmastime. But I'm just glad it sold. Monday's the changeover date, though, so I have to get busy making stuff for the new year. I also placed an order for some real deal micro marbles, the first thing I've ordered with my own money (Christmas money) online, and I'm excited. I'll make some stuff with them and show you.

I also somehow got a PayPal (without being 18+! It's a miracle!) so we're that much closer to selling stuff online. Nationwide, for now. In fact, as soon as I feel like spending more money, I might just go out and buy some packaging. The thing is, I really don't have any idea how to go about it. So the first person to buy will be my guinea pig and shouldn't expect everything to go smoothly. I'm not sure whether the stuff I make will last in the mail because of the details, but I'll keep my fingers crossed.

I'm still in my cake obsession phase, and with my most recent and best cake have come some new tips. Firstly, how many of you have grown tired of spending a long time mixing TLS with clay to make frosting/icing/whatever? I discovered a secret. It's not really a secret, it's just an alternate way. Instead, mix acrylic paint with TLS and voila. Much faster method. It doesn't burn in the toaster oven, even if you cook it at insane temperatures like I do. The only downside is, you can't store it because the paint in it will dry. But it saved me loads of time and problems (take a look at my earlier blog post about the Icing Endeavor).

Secondly, the rose method, which is illustrated in one of my character blog posts on the sequel website (http://www.awesomeclaysculptingextras.webs.com/), link here: http://awesomeclaysculptingextras.webs.com/apps/blog/. So please check them out. I didn't come up with them, but I like sharing.

Posted above is a picture of my latest cake, which was a gift for my mom #2. The chocolate cake demonstrates these methods. Also, you notice the border on the bottom? That was all done by hand. I placed alternating colors of dark sparkly brown and gold (Premo I think) teardrop shapes on the base of the cake. Wasn't too hard.

Disney Princess Collection Series 1

It's finally here! I've been working on these for quite a while, and here they are. I didn't want to release them until I had finished the first five, and with the next five will come series 2. From left to right: human Ariel, Cinderella, Aurora, Belle, and Snow White. I made them in this order: Belle, Aurora, human Ariel, Snow White, Cinderella.

Comments:

Belle: my first and favorite. She's so skinny. I love her hair, it really makes her. The reason she's so fantastic is because I had a figurine to look at. It's one of those things you find on the top of a Play-Doh container. It's a stamp.

Aurora (Sleeping Beauty): she turned out okay. Her hair doesn't look natural from the front, but it's beautifully curled in the back. I'll have individual shots soon. Her necklace is too thick, but it was an afterthought. Her dress isn't correctly shaped, and the sleeves go too high, but whatever. She's fine.

human Ariel: she didn't turn out quite how I wanted. First of all, to put it bluntly, she's too fat. I had to get the dress right, but I sacrificed her figure. I might redo her, or make a different human Ariel. But her bow looks nice from behind.

Cinderella: she's great, like Belle. Nice and skinny, and it's a miracle I pulled off her necklace. Tiny red lips, perfect. I also got the wrinkles in her dress, I don't know how I did it! I even managed to pull off her gloved fingers, even if her arms are a little long. The ONLY THING I may have a little bit of a quarrel with is how her hair looks from the back, but that's not too much of an issue, is it?

Snow White: fat fat fat face. Too puffy. It ruined her! Her hair might've saved it, but her dress is awful. I couldn't get the wrinkles and it just looks ratty. I'll definitely be redoing her, or maybe not. She's not a favorite.

See more pics on Flickr, and stay tuned for the next series. But don't hold your breath. For all of you Googling 'polymer clay Disney Princess', I'm hoping you found what you're looking for! Feel free to request who I should make next. Since it's 2012, maybe I'll get another series out by the end of the year. Thanks for reading!

Thanksgiving Meal

I did make a clay Thanksgiving meal, of course. A grand total of 9 dishes were created. I looked at Gardenofimagination's (YouTube) tutorial for most of them: the pumpkin pie, the apple pie (sort of), mashed potatoes, corn, and some of the turkey. For the turkey, I looked at her tutorial and Sugarcharmshop's (YouTube) cooked chicken tutorial and sort of combined the two. But the platter was my idea, using gold and silver. I also made the candles and the pumpkin and the cornucopia with no outside influence. The dishes from my imagination were the mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallow, the salad, the green bean *casserole*, and the bread. I'm going to make a video on YouTube so you can see them, and I'll be accepting tutorial requests for anything that I actually made myself.

Right now they're on my Flickr- Firefox979. Please check them out.

I also painted the wood table they're on.

Pumpkin Tutorial: Video!

Hey everyone! I finally uploaded the pumpkin tutorial in video form, so enjoy! I'm so glad to be finally helping my fellow clayers- especially the new ones. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE feel free to ask any questions or request something or leave a comment or anything like that! I want your feedback! I want to help! Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ums1oVID_oU

Thanksgiving is fast approaching and I'm starting to plan a clay feast. I noticed that Garden of Imagination (from YouTube) has a sort of menu from years ago and she shows how to make a lot of Thanksgiving foods. I'll sort of use her as a reference when I do mine.

I'm starting to worry about the Gallery- the stuff I have there hasn't sold and it was a lot of Halloween stuff! So now I can't put anything in there Thanksgiving-themed or Christmas-themed because the Halloween stuff hasn't sold- and won't, because Halloween's over! Big dilemma! We'll just have to see. Upside- I'm starting to think more seriously about neighborhood advertising, and from there, I'll proceed to conquer the world! Just kidding- from the neighborhood and the town I live (I'm already selling at the gallery, remember) I'll progress to the country and maybe the world. We'll see how far I get. It would be a great help if you would just tell me what you think.

Farewell until next post! Ta-ta, y'all!

Shipping Nationwide

I have been entertaining the possibility of nationwide (and eventually worldwide) shipping for a long time. It is kind of hard to do, seeing as I'm 15 and don't have a credit card, but it's definitely a future possibility. I am looking to expand our little business and I think this would be a good place to start.
I do have an Etsy shop and while I can't use it now, it will be available to me and all of you in the future. I guess I'll settle money payments that way, so that takes care of that. Probably through PayPal. (Note: I tend to undercharge according to friends/family. So if you think you're getting a good deal, then you probably are. But it's gonna change when I start to include shipping factors. Read on.)
The only real issue is packaging. Boxes cost a lot, so that will increase the price considerably (too bad for you, but I guess you already know and are used to that). I can deal with that. But then there is the issue of the fragility of my items. I tend to sculpt small scenes that are very detailed and could fall apart easily in the mail. I think this could be avoided for the most part with proper packaging, and this is where I need help. For those of you out there who ship miniatures elsewhere, especially polymer clay miniatures, please advise. How should I package them? When I bring them to my friends at school or whatever, I use small boxes with stuffing. The stuffing keeps them safe in my backpack, etc., but it would definitely not hold up in the mail. As soon as I can figure out this issue (and don't tell me to not include fine details. They're my signature thing. I mean, I'll try to make it a little less detailed, but really. You can't know what is or isn't going to fall apart until the person who ordered it contacts you all angry saying it arrived broken into a million pieces.) and the issue of payment methods (which should get resolved with age- I know most of you out there are thinking that it is ridiculous to expect a 15-year old entrepeneur to start this), I will start to ship nationwide. So expect it in the future.
Another note: I think I mentioned this in the last post, but again- the website is still having problems that Cali and I are working to fix, so to keep up-to-date with pictures of stuff we've made, check out Flickr (Firefox979). See you later, hot potater!

Formspring/Flickr

Our website has been having problems lately, because I think we've reached the 'storage limit' and can't fit anymore pictures- or that's what I thought until we deleted some pictures and the new ones still wouldn't upload. So rely more on Flickr now. If you have any idea how to fix the problems we've been having with http://www.webs.com/ then please let us know.


Here's the Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/firefox979


I recently discovered a nice little question/answer website called Formspring (perhaps you've heard of it?) and created an account there. I actually created one because of another polymer clayer, theshiri on Formspring (check her out and tell her I sent you!), who does really awesome really cute stuff on YouTube. So, ask me questions there too and don't be afraid to be anonymous. Here's the Formspring: www.formspring.me/firefox979


The picture is of the earrings I made Caitlin, made to look sort of like granite. I caned them using two canes, 3 colors each. Really simple. Canes took me 2 minutes each to make, earrings maybe 6 minutes each. But they turned out awesome. The letters imprinted in the middle are her initials- C and N.

Student work

My friend Caitlin was at my house the other day with her little brother, Christopher. It was some sort of party. I showed her my art room and the Clay Table, and she loved the miniatures/jewelry but was scared of the idea of sculpting.

I kept encouraging her and saying that there was no wrong way to do it because it's art and stuff like that. That's the good thing about sculpting- you can do whatever you want with it. She had had experience with ceramics- actual clay- before and quickly recognized that in theory this wasn't much different, but in actuality, there were a lot more options with polymer clay. I started her off with some small models to copy- a flower stud earring, a donut. Soon she became bold enough to do something of her own- a plate of pancakes. I let her use some of my pre-made syrup- TLS with soft pastels. Here's a picture. I also made her earrings while she was there. The flower is GITD, BTW.

I call it 'student work' even though she's technically not my student, but if/when Cali and I do start teaching, I would start off with simple things like food and this is probably how it would turn out.

Thanksgiving...or Christmas? And soft pastels

Guess what? Right. I went to Michaels again. So did Cali. We also went to the gallery and submitted more scenes/jewelry. But you know what's disappointing? I keep forgetting to take pictures before I submit them. Well, more like, I cook/glaze/finish them last minute and don't have time to take pictures. I need to stop that. It's sad. But oh well, there'll be more cool work in the future. Just not enough space...on our website. I'll work something out.
As for what I got, that would be...eight packs of clay, gold powder (funny story- Cali spilled most of hers today and now her floor is sparkly), and nature mini cookie cutters (Sculpey brand).
As for what we submitted, Cali put in three pairs of earrings and took two out (the ones with the old finishings and without glaze). She's already on Christmas stuff. I put in a double set of earrings, ghost studs and pumpkins. They're really not all that heavy, but they look like it. I also put in a scene, a fall/Halloween scene with a girl under a tree reading a book with a black cat. She's leaning against the tree next to the hay bale with a pumpkin on it. It took a while, which is why it's the only scene I brought this time. I used translucent for her skin instead of flesh to see the effect, and it looks like she's a porcelain doll. It's pretty neat.
So as for the holiday seasons, Cali and I are in disagreement over something. Now, I know the stores usually go like five seasons ahead with their decor, and she wants to start with Christmas stuff now (skipping Thanksgiving entirely) while I think we should do Thanksgiving now and wait until after Halloween do start doing Christmas stuff. What do you think? Should we be doing Thanksgiving...or Christmas? Leave me a comment telling me. What season are you buying for?
I still have the pumpkin tutorial up and Cali managed to make use of it (no one else has said anything about it, so does it work? Or not? If it doesn't I may as well take it down). I'm thinking of doing an actual video for YouTube, where all the other awesome tutorials are. That would be a good idea. I'll start experimenting. But there is one thing I need...time.
Now, since you've been so good at listening/reading so far, I will give you another idea. I've been watching tutorials on YouTube and I've noticed that one cool tool a lot of the sculptors use is...are...soft pastels. They're really good for subtle coloring. Great for mixing with TLS to make stuff like syrup (on pancakes) among other things. Buy them at Michaels and Hobby Lobby and other places that sell craft stuff. If you already use them, tell me what you think. I've just started using them but they're pretty neat.
So...bye for now! A bientot! (Yes, I'm taking French)

Pumpkin Tutorial

I finally made that pumpkin tutorial, converted it to a PDF, and here it is. I'm not sure if it works, so please tell me if it does or doesn't. I'm new to this whole PDF thing.

http://www.filejumbo.com/Download/E43243046F41AE36