O' Crafty Day #19: DIY Keys Holder/Ring

And I thought I would be doing up the post on shibori dyeing first.. But....

The keys ring that I have for a few years (gifted by a good friend) finally broke apart while I was opening my door, and I almost lost a few keys in the process. Instead of buying a new one, I decided to make my own.

I used a 19mm book ring as the core and hand-shaped some yellow polymer clay around one side of the book ring. I sculpted a cat-like figure. :) I did use a little Fimo liquid deko gel where the clay touches the metal ring.

The clay is then baked together with the metal book ring at the manufacturer's recommended temperature and timing. Once cured, I let the clay cool down to room temperature before doing some light sanding using a 320 grit wet/dry sand paper.

I then mixed up some acrylic colors and painted the details on my clay. Once the paint was dried, I did 3 coats of varnish and let dry overnight.

And while I was at it, I made a few more with more minimalist mod designs. They are still WIPs though.

Eggsters unite!

For those who love the art of eating eggs, cooked in all sorts of manner. (Though I only have sunnies-side-up here...)

The Christmas Tree Patisserie - #2 Random Yummies and Whipped Cream Dollops

Next in the menu are some random cookies and macarons as well as lots of whipped cream dollops.

All the above pieces are glazed and have eye-screws attached. In fact, they are part of the first batch of clay pastries I made for this series and the jam tart had appeared in an earlier post here.

The following macarons are new and I'm still waiting for the "filling" to dry before glazing.

If you have followed my Daiso Maniac Series, these cream dollops should be familiar. (If not, do check out how I had made these from Daiso paper clay.) I have added gold eye-pins to the pieces.

Star dollops

Swirl dollops

Rosette dollops

Have no idea what you call these..

This should have been in the crafting updates post.. But.. Oh well..

I made some macaron shells and other clay parts for more clay yummies.

The Christmas Tree Patisserie - #1 Mint Choco and Strawberry Choco Macarons

First up in the menu of the Christmas Tree Patisserie is:

Mint choco macarons and strawberry choco macarons. The shells were made from Fuwa Fuwa clay (light-weight paper clay from Kutsuwa) which I had tinted mint green and strawberry pink respectively. The shells were let dry before I glued the chocolate bits and the chocolate fillings.

The chocolate bits on top of each macaron were made by melting chocolate-colored glue stick in chocolate molds, both of which were from Daiso and I will be introducing them this week. As for the chocolate fillings, they were also made from Fuwa Fuwa clay which I had tinted a nice yummy shade of milk chocolate!

All the pieces were then dried and glazed with matte varnish.

A try at crepe paper flowerball~

My gal-pal will be celebrating her big day soon, and she has been doing a lot of research on wedding decorations via Pinterest. She was particularly fond of flower balls like this and this.

Due to the Chinese belief that people in mourning are not supposed to attend celebrations like weddings, I am not able to be her bridesmaid as planned. But having heard from her that she might not be able to get enough help from the new bridesmaids, I thought I should at least help her a little.

And so, what began as an offer to help her get the crepe paper streamers became a chance for me to aid in making the crepe paper flowerball. I am a little shocked that a such a small (3" to 3.5") foam ball requires more than 2 rolls of streamers (each 81 feet long). Perhaps I had made my roses tighter than normal and packed more into 1 small ball.. Haha..

Here's the final styling of the flowerball:

Using a plastic dessert cup as a stand, I filled the inside with fake marshmallows made from Kutsuwa paper clay and tied a gold ribbon round the cup. How romantic!

抱病上场

Yes, I still made it to the PMC silver clay workshop despite the mild dizziness and drowsiness (due to medication). Here's what I'd made:

Order in Chaos

I dare say this pendant is very me! Haha... My style is simple chic and cool.

Nyanko-chan

Nyanko-chan wasn't in my plan as I thought I might not have enough clay for Order in Chaos.. Since I'd extra clay, I decided to make a cat.. It's kinda sad that one part of the tail broke off from Nyanko-chan when I dropped the fired pendant on the floor. Guess I didn't put enough clay over that weak spot before firing... Had to use glue to fix it instead... ><''

My colleague made this beautiful piece:

Considering this was our first attempt at making accessories from silver clay (it wasn't easy molding the clay as it dried up easily), the end results were quite good (except for that broken tail)!

Where cats can never get weirder...

Trying to be more individualistic and artistic with Japanese air-dry polymer clay. Who will be next in the Weird family? (That's my half-sewn shorts my nyanko-s were placed on... LOL)

Re-took some photos in the evening sun~

Love the lighting from the evening sun~~~ ^.^

And a few more eye candies...

To decorate the current plain layout....

Miniature mochi plate

Clay Candies!

Angle shot...

Another angle shot...

Do you think these are sell-able???

A gift pic and some random photos...

They are all related to clay crafting though. =P


A macaroon pendant that Alina had requested... I'm giving her the whole necklace though... As for the pendant itself, there are two Swarovski crystals, one 925 silver eye-pin and two 925 white gold jump rings attached to it.


An array of roses and some random flowers... Yep, I've gone flower-crazy... 花痴... LOL!!!!


2 cute sakura buttons... Might look good on cozies/mufflers/earrings etc...


Faux cream made from the leftover filler that was used for the macaroon filling. These were not sealed...


Sealed with satin sealer. Looks more like cream now... =P Sadly, these can't be used... I was just trying them out.. And I had used paper as the "backing"... All of them had paper stuck at the bottom when I tried to pull them out... Oh wells... =P

And... Why are my glass cabochons not here yet??? *Sobs*..

Some handmade birthday gifts...

As mentioned in one of my previous posts, here are some photos of the birthday gifts I'd made so far~


Necklace and bracelet set for Alina. Made of handmade resin clay roses (sealed thrice with matte sealer), Swarovski pearls, Swarovski crystal butterfly charm, metal butterfly charms and interesting-looking chains.

The following are birthday cards made from different mediums.


Base of cards are some craft papers I bought at Popular bookshop. The 3D portions were made of different types of resin clay, ultra-mini plastic bottles and wires. And yes, those cookies and sweets in the jar are really very tiny... (the card is 1/4 the size of an A4 paper) =P

Still have some more gifts to make~ Will take more photos once I've finished making them...
(Still have my O' Crafty Day to prepare.. ><)

A constructive day~~

Had some more fun making miniature confectionery today!


If you're wondering about the size....

Chocolate chips cookies... About 8mm wide..

Checked cookies.. About 9mm wide..

Donuts with chocolate topping... Also about 9mm wide..

Vanilla ice-cream.. 1cm wide by about 2cm tall

Macaroon bling bling charms.. About 1cm wide..

An arty shot of the macaroons.. LOL..!

XB also attempted to make something... But... Erm...

1st try on clay miniatures

Okay... not so "mini" miniatures.. Had a try on making clay bunny miniatures.. And my 2 bunnies turned out about 3cm tall each (which is slightly taller than an inch.. and yes, the height includes the ears.. LOL) Have a look!






Can see that they are not perfect... Still have lots of room for improvements.. =\

Crafty Tuesday - #1 Gothic Lolita Bracelet and Earring set

Sorry for the 1 day delay!!.. But anyway, for the very 1st post for Crafty Tuesday, I'll be sharing a tutorial on making a bracelet and earring set out of air-dry clay roses, ala gothic-lolita style.



Materials needed:

Makin's Clay - Black (You can experiment with other types of clay)
Perfect Pearl - Blue Smoke (You can experiment with other colors and brands of pigment powders)
Silver eyepins - I used 8
Silver jumprings - I used about 70
Silver headpins - I used 7
Silver Clasp - 1
Silver earring findings - 2

Instructions:


1. Grab and knead a small piece of the clay.
2. Take a tiny bit of this kneaded clay and roll it into a snake, about 2 cm long and 3 to 4 mm wide in diameter.
3. Flatten this snake.
4. Roll up this flatten piece like so. This will be the heart of the rose.



5. Take another 3 small piece of clay and form each of them into a tear shape. Each is about 7 to 8mm long.
6. Flatten these 3 pieces.
7. Take 1 flattened piece and wrap it round the rose's heart like so.
8. Push down the top edge a little to form the petal like so.



9. Take another flattened piece, and wrap it round the heart, slightly overlapping the 1st petal.
10. Do the same thing for the 3rd petal. This will slightly overlap the 2nd and 1st petals.



11. Take another 3 pieces of clay, slightly bigger than each piece in step 5 (Refer to picture 11 for a size comparison between each piece and the partial rose you've done so far), and form them into tear shapes.
12. Flatten these 3 pieces. These will form the outer petals of the rose.
13. Wrap one flattened piece around the rose. Try to place it between 2 inner petals like so.
14. Pinch the center of the edge of this outer petal like so.(You can shape this petal a little more to make it more realistic)



15 & 16. Do the same thing for the other 2 flattened pieces. You'll get a completed rose by step 16.
17. Use a scissors and trim off the back of the rose.
18. Flatten this trimmed back slightly. Now will be a good time to insert an eyepin through the back of this rose. (Refer to picture 20 to get an idea what I mean)



19. Use a paint brush and brush on Perfect Pearl for each rose. You could seal the powdered pigment in with a satin or matte sealer.
20. How the roses look with eyepins. I've made 6 small roses for the bracelet and 2 slightly bigger ones for the earrings. You could make more of the smaller roses if you have a bigger-sized wrist.



21. Connect 2 jump rings to one of the loops of a rose like so.
22. Take another 2 jump rings, and loop through the 2 jump rings you have connected to the rose earlier like so. (Ignore that weird filigree-looking thing that's attached to the back of the rose... It's a silly mistake I'd made. It should be an eye-pin in your case.)
23. Take 2 more jump rings; and connect them to the 2 jump rings you've attached in step 22 and to another rose like so.
24. Continue in this fashion until you have connected 5 roses or any number of roses that will give you a good fit (Ignore the 6th rose in this picture. I redid the bracelet, doing away with the filigree like backing.. Used eye-pins instead.)


I finish this bracelet by attaching a chain of jump rings to one end with some dangling beads (use a headpin to string the beads together for each dangle) and a rose. On the other end, I attached 2 jump rings through the same loop, another 2 jump rings through these 2 jump rings, and finally a clasp. (Wore this to work today.. LOL.. The Perfect Pearl really sparkle under sunlight!)



For the earrings, you take 1 earring finding and attach 2 jump rings through the loop of this finding. Then, take another 2 jump rings and attach them through the 2 previous jump rings. Next, attach the rose to these 2 jump rings. I then connect a chain of 4 jump rings with some dangling beads. Do exactly the same for the 2nd earring.

There you have it! A gothic-lolita bracelet and earring set!