The Making of the Caterpillar's Hookah with Rachel Whetzel

My love affair with Creative Paperclay® continues!! I'm working some more on my Caterpillar piece, and today's project is his Hookah!

WHAT YOU'LL NEED to make your own Caterpillar's Hookah:

• Something to form the bones of your piece. I used a large bolt for the main piece, and a second, smaller screw for the mouth piece attachment.
• Creative Paperclay®
• Paints. I used Krylon spray for the metal, and acrylic craft paints for the bowl.
• Sandpaper
• Sandits
• Embroidery Floss (black and white) 

To get started, I used a large bolt and put a light layer of Creative Paperclay® over the top of it to start my base. 

 Next, I sculpted the base of my piece, and left part of the bolt threads exposed, because I will use that to secure the piece to my mushroom later.

 I used the thread area of the piece to spin it and used my fingers in a stationary position to imitate a lathe like motion, and make my sculpts uniform.

Once all my pieces were dry, I sanded and assembled the pieces. To create the tubing on my mouth piece, I used the same technique as you would use to make a hair wrap. GO HERE to see a tutorial video on how to do this. I used Sandits tools to create a nice, round tobacco bowl, and to make some of my smaller swoopy bits look nice and clean. I will officially be adding these to my creating arsenal.

 Then I wrapped the cord with some masking tape to protect it from paint, and spray painted the piece with metallic spray paint.

Last, I painted the handle of the mouth piece, and the bowl of the hookah, and put the piece onto my mushroom! 

Thanks for reading today!! I would love for you to visit me at my "house" too!! Hop over and subscribe!  ~rachel

February Tip, Sanding with Sandits™ by LuLu Lancaster

Hello and welcome!

 this is LuLu Lancaster with a tip on sanding

 your Creative Paperclay® sculptures using Sandits™

These swab like sanders are perfect for getting into small spots where a piece of sand paper even a little torn piece just doesn't do the trick.

 Sandits™ have two sides a 120 and 180 grit. 

I have used the courser side to get "spots and raised areas" off my sculptures. 

And then follow with the finer grit in a circular motion, almost twirling the SandIts ™to define areas around eyes, nose and lips.

Nostrils have always been an area on clay sculptures that tend to flatten when sanded. Using the very end tip of the Sandits™you can twirl the rough edges of the nostril without flattening it.

Hands are another area that can be hard to sand. Using the Sandits™ you can get the edges of the fingers, and by again twirling the sander you can create a pocket of the palm

here I have started to sand the top of the hand showing better definition.

And here is a palm.

The sanders can get gunked up quickly. A few swishes in water and a good brushing with an old stiff paintbrush will clean them right up. 

  And these sanders can be used wet also :D

Thank you for taking the time to check out my Tips on

 Sandits™ sanders 

and be sure to check out their website while you are at it and grab some for yourself :)

LuLu Lancaster

 LuLusAppleDolls

Working With Delight Air Modeling Compound

I have decided I love the Delight Air Modeling Compound a lot!  I love how light it is to work with, and I especially love how it is easy to shape and mold, and how it air dries, but I especially love how safe it is for kids to use!  Working with the compound is a bit different than working with the Creative PaperClay product - and handles a bit differently too!  Today's project is awesome for a child to do, or someone just starting out to create with clay!   

Supply list:  
Delight Air Modeling Compound - 1 package
Ribbon of your choice
Flowers of your choice
A bit of bling for the insides of the flowers 
Adhesive of your choice (I used a hot glue gun)

Directions:
Step one:  Take the compound and split the package into 1/3rds, rolling out each of the parts into long round strip's.
Step two:  Repeat until you get 3 strands, braid the strands together.
Step three:  Take the strands and form a heart shape, leaving to air dry overnight (or longer if you need to).
Step four:  After heart has completely dried, take the ribbon and start to wrap it around the heart, creating a bow at the bottom.
Step five:  Add the flowers (or other decoration) to your heart, and you are done!  

Great easy project for the whole family to do!  **Tip - clean off the area you are going to be working at before you start to roll out the compound.  There is nothing worse than trying to pick out hair from a pet out of an awesome creation!!!**

Thanks for stopping by,

Lynda Jeffs

Creative PaperClay Design Team

and Memories in Tyme 

Let's Experiment! Tip #4 by LeeAnn Kress

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to the the Creative Paperclay® Blogsite!  Happy Monday!

Most of us are lucky enough to have today off ... me too!  So, since I am relaxing around the house, I decided to experiment with some paperclay.  This experiment is kinda off the cuff for me ... and I figured that I would share whether this experiment went good or bad.

I wanted to see if Creative Paperclay® could be made into something with the texture of frosting.  I have a wonderful faux frosting recipe that I came up with years ago, but I am always looking for new ways to incorporate the confections style/look in my art.  Why not with clay?

(All my comments will be below the picture I am referring to.)

So, I took some clay and put it in a plastic zip lock bag.

Next, I added a little water ... a little at a time.  I am looking for the consistency of frosting.  Seal your bag and squish it up really well.  Next time, I think I might try using my blender that is specifically for clay.  That would be better ... and faster too!  Try and get it really smooth, creamy, but not runny.

Here I am using a frosting tip and a cake decorator bag.  I tried using a tip at the bottom of a zip lock bag, but when I put pressure on the bag the tip kept ripping the zip lock and then the tip would fall out.  LOL!  That was a failure!  A frosting decorator bag was the answer as it is thicker and sturdy.  The tip stayed secure.  Yay!

I placed down a sheet of wax paper and started to squeeze out the clay through the tip.  Now, I am not a professional cake decorator ... far from it.  But, I am brave enough to try it out.

Here is my practice sheet of wax paper.  I am pretty happy with my first attempt.  I will definitely need more practice.  However, I can see those cute flowers painted up as they might make really cute embellishments.

The great thing about this, is if you don't like any of it, scoop it up and put it back in to the frosting bag and try again.  If you have left over clay, put the remainder in a container and make slip with it.  Slip fills in any cracks you might have with a project you are working on.  It is essential to have on standby.  A couple of our artists here on the Design Team have mentioned how to make slip on this blogsite.  If you have left over clay, slip is a good thing to make and easy too.  No clay goes to waste.

So, my tip for you this month is EXPERIMENT!!!    

If you have tried a new technique with Creative Paperclay®  (good or bad) leave a post here and tell us about it.  We would love to hear the good, and maybe the Design Team can help with any bad experiments.  We would love to help your experiments grow!

I hope you enjoyed my post.  If you have time stop by my blog at www.charmedconfections.com and say hello.  There you will find all my other creations in clay.

Until next time!  LeeAnn

A Delight-Ful Tip, By Diane

Hello there,
 hey, how was Valentine's day?   Did you spoil your Valentine rotten!  That's what we creatives do.. right?   We express ourselves with love, kindness and a heart-felt handmade gift ...

  I kinda have to  brag here for a second about our Design Team, THEY ROCK!  Don't they?  I hope you all had a chance to visit each of them on the Creative Paperclay's® Blog Hop,Link Party and try out some of their projects. 

My head was just spinning with inspiration after visiting each of those creative gals. If you haven't had a chance to visit you can go HERE to see the amazing creations/ tutorials from our Designs Team.

 Today for my tip, I would like to talk about Delight Modeling Compound . As you may remember, I used this modeling material for the first time on these two tutorials. " My Eye Is on You Valentine" & " A Monster Ornament/Treat holder".

 I loved working with Delight.  It is a different clay in some aspects, like it's texture is light and fluffy- kinda like a marshmallow and when it dries, it reminds me of one of those long foam pool noodle toys, and it's so light. Perfect to use with push molds, scrapbooking amd mixed media art.

 The one thing that sticks out that I'd like to share is- I found that  whether you are using it in a push mold, sculpting it, or cutting it out, it is much easier and in the long run, quicker to smooth away your imperfections, seams and unwanted edges using your damp finger or a paintbrush.  before you allow your piece to dry.
 I found by doing this, I was able to eliminate the sanding process once my Delight piece was dried.
 Gosh, it's okay with me if I can skip the sanding step...right?

 I'd like to thank you for visiting the Creative Paperclay blog today and I hope this tip comes in handy while working with Delight Modeling compound.
If you get a chance, come on over to my place. and have a look around.

Take care and happy creating!
~Diane

Slip Slidin' Away

Slip sliding away, slip sliding away 

You know the nearer your destination, the more you slip sliding away

Hi, there!! Carole from Create & Craft with a tip for working with clay. In many of my projects I use slip. Slip is a "liquefied suspension of clay particles in water." Fancy way of saying watered down clay. ☺ You can learn how to make your own slip from Diane's blog post. Slip is like good wine—it improves with age. As it gets older, it gets smoother and creamier. I add a drop or two of chlorine bleach to my slip to retard mold growth. Yes, I keep it that long.

To me, slip is like magic—it covers a multitude of sins. I'm not a big fan of sanding. So, I've discovered that adding a coating of slip to a dried piece, and letting it dry again reduces, and in some cases eliminates, the sanding required. It can also produce a great vintage aged texture. For this technique, the slip I use is the consistency melted chocolate.

I used this technique for the piece that I'll feature in my next blog post. Here's a sneak peek. 

Susan's February Tip: Armature Strengthening

Hi! Today's Creative Paperclay® modeling material tip is brought to you from a cold and icy Susan! I hope you stopped by the Valentine's Blog Hop and seen the Design Team's awesome tutorials and projects! If not, what are you waiting for, go, now!  For my project, I made Bob. He's a sweet alien all dressed for Valentine's day.  There's a lot of pictures of Bob along the way, but I wanted to take a moment to call out one of the armature building steps.

One of the my favorite features of Creative Paperclay® modeling material is its strength after it is dried. Another of my favorite features of the clay is its ability to adhere to itself. Combining these two features in a multi-step sculpting process creates a nice solid piece. In this photo, you'll see where I reenforced all of the seams between the egg shape and the shaker pegs with clay.

Once that dried, I had an incredibly stable surface to sculpt on. I didn't have to worry about putting too much pressure on the glued on pieces and having them pop off (yeah, that's happened more than once on other projects!)

For his feet and ears, I repeated the same tactic. I attached the pieces with hot glue to hold them still, then covered them with clay to make them a forever part of the sculpt.

It does take a bit a patience. In this case it added two days of drying time between steps. I think it can be worth it though. I handled him with reckless abandon as well as had one big ugly drop. He's all in one piece!

So tell me - you do have any tricks for making your sculptures strong?