Tea Party or sTEAm party? by Rachel Whetzel

Rachel Whetzel here! While I was making my Mad Hatter doll recently, I had the idea to create something in a Mad Hatter THEME, with a Hat sitting on a tea cup using Creative Paperclay® modeling material.

 WHAT YOU WILL NEED

• Creative Paperclay® modeling material
• Acrylic Craft paints (I used Folk Art) 
• Tea Cup
• Amazing Clear Cast Resin
• Brown Alumilite Dye
• Screw
• News Paper or Foil
• Masking Tape
• Sandpaper

To start, I mixed Amazing Clear Cast Resin with brown dye, to make a "tea" in the cup I planned to use.  Be very careful!! A little bit of dye goes a VERY long way as you can see! I've nearly got COFFEE here! (It's not as dark as it looks in this picture in real life. I had a hard time getting a realistic shot.)

 Once the resin was set, I screwed a long screw into the resin as an anchor for my top hat.

Then I used the same technique I have shown in my Gnome and Egg projects, and wrapped a base for my hat around the screw with News Paper and masking tape.
Once the base was ready, I added Creative Paperclay® to the outside of the form to create a hat shape.

I let this dry, and then started adding layers to the piece to create the brim of the hat. This takes a few layers, with time for drying between each one. Once the hat was created, I sanded the piece, and painted it! Then I topped off my resin with one last layer.

I haven't decided if I'm going to add more to the hat or not... I really love the way it looks just like this, and now that I've got it this far, I'm debating on whether or not to add to the Mad Hatter theme, or to create a Steampunk look with it! I'm really thinking I'd like to take a Steam Punk angle... What do you think? Leave me a comment, and let me know what you think!! I would love for you to visit me at my "house" too!! Thank you so much for reading!!  ~rachel

May Tip by Rachel Whetzel

Hello!! Rachel Whetzel here. I have a tip for you! That guy above is my newest art doll I created using Creative Paperclay® modeling material. My tip today is about painting. When you paint things with a lot of texture, like Mad Hatter's hair, you can achieve the best dimension by painting in more than one color to add shading and highlight areas. 
For the Mad Hatter here, I used a light blue paint as my base coat, and then added a darker blue. Before the darker blue was dry, I wiped it off to expose the lighter shades underneath, and left the darker blue in the crevices of the hair. For the last layer, I used antiquing stain and then rubbed it off as well, leaving it in the deepest parts of the hair. Using the technique allows you to let your sculpting to the work for you!