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Monday, July 16, 2012

Make and Take Project ideas for festivals, fairs, or birthday parties!


I've often set up clay projects for a make and take at an art festival.  I bring little boxes and baking instructions so that the kids can bake the projects at home.  I also have the basic proportional amounts of clay already cut up.  Most of the projects in my Kids Clay e-book would work well as a make and take.


Saturday, July 14, 2012

Polymer clay "Paintings"


After sculpting a picture in a finished frame, I decided it might be better to use an unfinished wood frame.  If you paint glue on the wood and let it dry, the clay will stick to it better.  Pan pastels are amazing for clay, but any chalk pastels will work.  The pan pastels come with cool spongy applicators. It reminds me of make-up.  I will also scrub a regular chalk pastel onto paper until it turns to powder, and then I apply it with a brush.  This creates a misty background.  The rest of the picture I sculpt in clay, and press onto the background.  The process of "painting" with clay come natural to me because I used to use oil pastels in the same way.  Instead of drawing with the oil pastels, I would use them like a paste and apply them with a pencil eraser.  It was almost like painting with clay.  I'll try to add some more detailed posts along with future paintings.










You can use slices of any cane.  Here I used slices from my gemstone cane tutorial.