Christmas Ornament

Good morning,


wow, what a crazy week it's already been.  I have a quick project for Christmas.  Since it's not that far away, I thought I'd start working on some projects to give away as gifts.  I just love Christmas and every year the kids get a new ornament, so this year I thought I'd make them.  Being on the Creative Paperclay DT was a good reason to use the clay for this project.

The ornaments I picked up at the local thrift store

and used a ball of clay about the same size.

I formed the ball of clay on top of the ornament

kinda like a hat.  I didn't need any glue and let

it set up for about 24 hours.

This is the side view.

Then I stamped a peachy keen face onto the ornament

and I also pierced through the clay for a hanger.

I painted the clay in pink with hair

(Sorry about the blurry picture)

and also one in blue.  You can see where I add

the string to make them into hanging ornaments.

Now, I hope I've inspired you to use your Creative Paperclay and make some of your own ornaments.  This was so super easy and quick and each of the kids and grandkids are going to get one of these this year.

You can see more of my creations on my blog here.

Thanks for looking 

Brenda

Skeleton Doll Tutorial

Halloween comes in just a few weeks and I have found myself very much in the zone for creating all things ghoul and ghostly. I have decided to give a tutorial on how to make a skeleton doll by utilizing a simple technique for making a skeleton head combined with my technique for making a doll body out of Creative Paperclay. Hope this gets you in the mood for trick or treating as much as it has for me!!!


What You'll Need
Creative Paperclay
Styrofoam ball - 2" or 3" cut in half
Cup of warm water for sculpting
Sharp pottery tool or toothpicks
6" of 12 gauge garden or jewelry wire
12" of 24 gauge jewelry wire
Acrylic paint
Fabric, lace, ribbon, buttons, etc.
Thread and needle or strong craft glue




What To Do
1.  Take your styrofoam ball cut in half, mold it a bit into an egg shape, and cover with paperclay. Use water to dampen, smooth, and blend the clay into the ball.

2.  Take two fingers or your thumbs and press eye sockets into the clay. Press up a bit to create little eyebrow ridges.

3.  Take your sharp tool or toothpicks and create little nostril holes in the shape of triangles or teardrops.

4.  Take a small bit of paperclay shaped in a symmetrical leaf shape, dampen with a tiny bit of water, and place where the mouth will be. 

5. Take your sharp tool and carve a mouth. I prefer lips and a line that divides the jaw and top of the head. Feel free to carve in teeth, a smile, a frown, a scared expression....whatever you prefer! I also like to add little details here, like little carvings above the eyebrow ridges, stitch lines over jaw line, heart shapes on the cheeks. You have creative control!!!

 6.  Take your 12 gauge wire and cut a 5" length. Insert this wire into your skeleton's head, a little off-center toward the back of the head. This will be your doll's neck and armature for its torso and waist pieces.

7.  Roll out a small snake of paperclay and insert it over the wire. Skeletons have bony necks, so make this part really skinny. Use a toothpick or your sharp tool to make the individual neck bones. 

8. Sculpt a two triangles out of the paperclay for the neck, top half of torso, and bottom half of torso. 

9.  Add two triangles with the tips touching each other to the wire.

10.  Dampen fingers and break off small pieces of paperclay to fill in gaps between the cylinder and two triangles. Smooth the clay as you go using slip which simply means that you take a small amount of paperclay, dampen it in your cup of water, and smoothing it between the two body pieces.  

11.  The pictures that were meant for the rest of this skeleton doll tutorial were lost due to a technical glitch. Sooo....To build the rest of this doll, visit one of my previous doll tutorials following steps #9-20. http://creativepaperclay.blogspot.com/2011/08/paperclay-kitty-doll-tutorial.html  You can also see how this doll body comes together by reviewing this tutorial!!! Please note that the neck style on the skeleton doll is completely different from the Kitty Doll. The skeleton doll neck does not need to be blended into the torso!!!

12.  Now that doll is assembled, go ahead and paint it. Allow paint to dry, seal with varnish and allow to dry again. 

13. And once the doll's paint is dried and sealed...EMBELLISH LIKE CRAZY!!! Visit another previous tutorial of mine to learn an easy technique for dressing your doll!!! http://creativepaperclay.blogspot.com/2011/08/glue-and-wrap-dressing-technique-for.html

My doll is far from finished, but this is what she looks like so far! 

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial! I'll be posting better pictures of my completed doll...hopefully this weekend. Please visit http://marissartdolls.blogspot.com/ when you have a chance! Until next time, happy creating!!!

How to Make A Thanksgiving Wreath

By Amanda Marks

Fall is my favorite time of year, I love the leaves changing colors, the coolness at nights and the start of the holidays.  Last year I made a holiday trivet with my kids hand prints as turkeys this year I decided to make a wreath with the same idea.  My problem was how and the world can I make the turkeys?  Answer Creative Paperclay.


Materials:
Hand-print Templates (hand-prints traced and cut out onto paper)
Creative Paperclay
Pipe Installation (from Home Depot) or a Wreath
Duct Tape
Ribbon
Leaves (can be fake or real - I used real leaves that I painted with Metallic paints)
Hot Glue Gun and Sticks
Scissors
Fondant Roller (rolling pin)
Exacto Knife
Paint
Googly Eyes (optional)
Feathers (optional)
Pop Top or Wire (for hanging)

Amazing Mold Putty
Delight Paperclay
Acorn

1.  Take your pipe installation and duct tape it together to form a circle.  If you have a wreath you can skip this step.

2.  Take your ribbon ad wrap the wreath or the pipe installation with the ribbon.  You will need to secure the ribbon with hot glue at the beginning and at the end.

 3.  Trace the hands of the child or children onto paper and cut out.  Take your Paperclay and roll out a uniformed thickness, place template on the clay and cut out the template with an Exacto Knife.  Allow to flat dry for 24 hours - to avoid warping flip half way through the drying process.  TIP: If your piece does warp - get a piece of wax paper, spray both sides of the Paperclay piece with water.  Sandwich the Paperclay piece between the wax paper and place under a heavy book for about two hours.  Your piece will be dry and flat.

4.  Paint and decorate your Paperclay "turkeys" - I let my children do this part.

5.  Assemble the wreath.  I placed the leaves on the background towards the top and added acorns.  I then added my turkeys to the bottom of the wreath.

6.  I decided my wreath needed something else so I wanted acorns.  I decided to take my lonely acorn I found on my walk and decided to make a mold.  The video is a short video of me making the mold.

My acorn un-molded and trimmed.

Since I seem to have a squirrel infestation (i.e. Booga) I had to repair my acorns with the Delight.

7.  Instead of wire I hot glued a Pop Top (beer tab, etc.) to the back of the wreath for hanging.

8.  Hang up outside so the local wildlife can enjoy it - they frog really wanted his picture taken.

MORE Halloween Creative Paperclay Projects!

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary…….. I came up with some new Creative Paperclay ideas! I’m really having fun coming up with decorative things created from paperclay these days, but check out the gourds I’m using along with the clay:
This is an egg gourd and yep, it’s shaped just like an egg!
This is an egg gourd with part of a mini bottle gourd glued to it.
These two gourds were the beginning of my Creative Paperclay project. They were the “skeleton” so to speak for my clay to be applied on. I do get the gourds wet before I cover them and mold the clay to look like these pictures:
                        
To me, it’s just so much fun turning that little humble gourd and some clay into something that so neat for Halloween. Oh, in case you are wondering the whiskers on the cat are actually horse hair. I had some to use on a different gourd project. Once the clay was dry (it did take about a day and a half) It was time to paint. FUN!
The painting of the Halloween cat and raven turned out super spooky neat I thought:
                                                                          

The raven’s eyes were silver glitter and it made them really show up. Now I have a couple more things to decorate for Halloween. What do you think of them? I also wanted to mention that even though I use gourds a lot, you can use styrofoam or anything similar.

Barbara

Something Ghoulish with Creative Paperclay!

I’m rather pleased with the way my project for today turned out. I totally thought “outside the box” on this one. lol I started out with my Creative Paperclay and a cannonball gourd. Yep, that’s the name of this particular gourd. First I covered the whole gourd with paperclay and let that dry overnight. I then made and attached all of the ghoulish paperclay features and let them dry also. I don’t think I had this much fun with clay since I was in grade school!

                                             
The eyes are actually brads, which I just bent the posts down and pushed them right into the clay. I next attached the head to a spindle (remember me mentioning that I bought a whole box full of them quite awhile back?) and a purchased wood base. I also inserted a dowel rod through the spindle.
                                                           
It’s really hard to show in a picture what the features really looked like ‘cause the clay is white. After attaching these parts together I decided to add ears and an eyeball in the back of the head. Once this was done and dried, I went to work with the paint and embellishments!!! Woo Hoo what fun!! I painted all the details spray sealed him and gave him a collar made out of “Recollections” 12X12 Cardstock. I cut strips of the cardstock, sewed them with needle and thread and glued them to the spindle. Looking good isn’t he?
                                           
Well……. he does look pretty good but you know me, I just had to add a little more. So I put another collar under the first one made out of tulle. I made it the same way as the first. Then I used some “Recollections” border and cut the skull border and hung it from the dowel rod and cut out the labels individually and glued them around the bottom of the spindle. Here are pictures of the finished ghoul:
                                            
                                            
                                             
I really had a lot of fun making this ghoulish guy! I guess he does look kind of scary ‘cause when the dog saw him he growled and then barked at him. LOL Why don’t you buy some Creative Paperclay and make yourself some Halloween fun! You can use any type of ball to cover with the paperclay. A styrofoam ball works great too.

Barbara

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