Now, before I get into the stuff I made, I just wanna say this. Miniature food is one of the most detailed and complex things to make, because of all the different possibilities. It depends on what look you're going for, first- realistic or whimsical? And once you've decided, details come into play. Are you going to make it so realistic and detailed that it would break if handled? Probably a dangerous idea if it were to become jewelry. But are you going to make it so simple yet fun that it becomes boring to the eye? Like a macaroon with three bright solid colors, but little texture. Better for jewelry, definitely, but not for decoration. All these things must be considered. I make sure I know exactly what I'm doing before I begin, and tailor it to the purpose I'm going to assign it.
For instance, look at the cookies in the middle. To me, they seem pretty realistic. Probably as realistic as I can get it, for now. But cookies in themselves are a simple concept- just ovular objects with a rough surface. The details are up to you. If you want to decorate it, the frosting/sprinkles/chocolate isn't going to make it super-breakable (unless you do something crazy). That's why I was able to make them realistic without endangering them as wearables. However, if you were to do a hamburger, that would be a whole different story, a post for another time.
Considering the Alice in Wonderland-themed earrings, those were not too much to think about. I wanted to make them realistic enough, and, being cookies and bottles, I doubted they would break, expecially if I made them small enough. I'm not
too sure about the realisticity of the cookies, but I think they'd pass. For the bottles, I made them up completely out of my mind (well, I did that with the cookies, too) so I have no idea if it would be possible, but it's Alice in Wonderland, so anything can happen. The advantage of that is that no one has anything to compare it to, and therefore it is assumed to be realistic. But I doubt people will read that much into the whole thing.
As for how I made them, I will go ahead and explain.
Chocolate-Dipped Chocolate Chip Cookies: I'm actually thinking of doing a tutorial on these, but I'll give you the basics. I mixed Sculpey tan and Premo orange to form a nice cookie dough shade. Next, I mixed brown with black and darker brown to achieve a chocolate-chip shade and rolled it into a really thin log. I then took my heat gun (from Michaels) and hardened it. I used my blade to slice it in really thin slices and those were my chocolate chips. I dried them so they wouldn't mix into the color of the cookie dough. I mashed some of the chips into the dough and kneaded it. Then, I ripped off a bit the size of the cookie I wanted, and formed it into a sort of cookie shape. I added a few chips to the top and worked them in a bit so they seemed normal. I textured the cookie with a toothbrush and smoothed it over a little so it wasn't completely full of miniscule holes. I then brushed some dark brown soft pastels around the edges so it looked cooked. I inserted an eyepin and then made the chocolate mixture- dark brown soft pastels mixed with TLS. I held the cookie by the eyepin and dipped it in the chocolate and let it dry on my bead rack. I did this will all four- three for the earring and one for another cookie mix earring.
'Eat Me' cookies: To make the actual cookie, I repeated the same process as above, only I made it rectangular instead of ovular and omitted the chocolate chips. For the frosting, I finally relented and tried the TLS/clay mixture instead of TLS/paint. It worked pretty much the same, just took a little longer mixing. I used Premo accents blue, which was sparkly! And mixed it with half a clothespin until it was the right texture. It didn't take too long, but I was only using a small amount. I spread it on the cookie with the clothespin. (One cookie's frosting layer is thinner than the other- you can see the glitter- because it kept flipping over and the frosting got all over the table) For the words, I used chocolate chips left over from the chocolate chip cookies and placed them with a ball-end tool. Very useful; I recommend it. I inserted the eyepin before the frosting, FYI.
'Drink me' bottles: I took a bit of red for one and purple for another and formed it to look like the liquid inside of a bottle would look. Like a cone with the top cut off. And I molded some Premo translucent (MAKE SURE it's Premo translucent. Sculpey translucent is LESS translucent) around it in a bottle shape, knowing that the color would show through a little bit. Enough. I left a hole in the top for the cork, which was a bit of brown covered with tiny holes. I wrapped silver around the neck of the bottle and attached a white tag, which I wrote on after it was cooked.
Glazing: to add to the realistic effect, I only glazed the chocolate and the frosting, and the white tag on the bottles.
Heart/coconut cookie: I layered different shades of brown in a heart shape and covered it with chocolate (TLS/chalk). Afterwards, I added some coconut flakes over the top- from MiniatureSweet's Etsy shop, but I'm pretty sure it was just really small scraps of paper. At any rate, some of it sort of distinegrated or something in the oven so I glazed the top and added more so it would dry with the coconut on it.
4-Layer Bar Treat: Same concept with the coconut. If you want to know EXACTLY how I made it, I'll do a tutorial (but you must request it!). Plate mold and doilies and coconut flakes: MiniatureSweet's Etsy shop
Thanks for reading. Requests are welcome.
