Getting Started – Making Minis With Polymer Clay

 Making Dollhouse Miniature Food From Polymer Clay With Crown Jewel Miniatures

 Getting Started 

This blog is intended as a helpful guide in creating realistic, one inch scale (1:12^th) polymer clay food for use in a dollhouse. Of course you can modify the scale and create polymer clay food for any scale and for use in jewelry making, scrap booking and other crafts.

Feel free to ask questions! I can be reached via the contact link on my website (http://www.CrownJewelMiniatures.com), and I’m always happy to help! My techniques are self-taught as well as things I’ve learned from other miniaturists here and there. I hope you’ll be inspired to create something wonderful!

To get started, you will need the basics. I’ve put together a short list of tools and materials I feel are essential. Once you become comfortable making minis, you might like to add on some things that will make your minis more realistic. Here are my basics:

• Polymer clay in primary colors (buy a sample pack to save money)
• An aluminum scraping tool or razor blades
• Clay cutters in basic shapes
• An inexpensive set of plastic modeling tools
• A square, flat, white kitchen floor tile (10” x 10” or 12” x 12” – Available at Home Depot, Lowe’s or any home improvement store for about $2.00)
• Wood toothpicks
• A pasta machine

*Everything on this list is readily available at Michaels Crafts, A.C. Moore, Hobby Lobby or online at DickBlick.com, Ebay.com and Etsy.com.

With just these tools, you can experiment with making fruits, vegetables, meat, flowers, soap, candles, cup and dishes. You can find polymer clay how-to projects in almost every issue of the dollhouse magazines and some books are excellent resources. Here are a few of my favorites:

Published Resources For Creating Miniature Food:

• American Miniaturist Magazine
• Miniature Collector
• Dolls House World Magazine
• Making Miniature Food and Market Stalls, by Angie Scarr
• Miniature Food Masterclass, by Angie Scarr
• Dolls House Do It Yourself Food Displays by Sue Heaser

Online Resources For Creating Miniature Food:

 Once you have experimented with making the basics, you’ll want to add a few more materials. Here is a helpful list of things I use often:

• TLS (Translucent Liquid Sculpey)
• Artists Chalks (soft pastels, not oil crayons)
• Air dry clay, such as Delight or Model Magic air dry modeling compound
• Clay cutters in various shapes (I use Kemper Kutters, Makins cutters and cutters designed for sugar craft)
• A clay extruder
• A tissue blade, a wavy blade and a ripple blade (sold specifically for use with polymer clay)
• Very small plastic containers with lids (recycle those tiny plastic condiment pots with the clear lids that you bring home from take-out restaurants)
• Oil paints
• Acrylic paints
• Polymer clay glaze, or varnish, (matte, satin or gloss)
• Wood coffee stirrers
• A glass marble
• Tacky glue
• A tapestry needle
• A small bag of craft sand (ochre or beige is very versatile)
• Various spices
• Very tiny seeds (blueberry, poppy, celery, apricot or strawberry)
• Cornstarch or talcum powder
• Aluminum foil
• Waxed paper
• Coarse sandpaper
• Amazing Mold Putty

 These additional items are essential to me for making mini food. You won’t need them to make mini food with polymer clay, but you will need them to simulate water, milk, juice, oil, vinegar, syrup, mustard, pickling brine and jelly:

• Scenic water (clear and white)
• Clear casting resin
• Gallery Glass (crystal clear, cocoa, amber, etc)

As my blog continues, we’ll start with the basics and work our way up to adding realism to your miniature foods. I plan on adding photos to show various stages of making minis with polymer clay and I welcome your feedback and suggestions.

• Please note you can certainly try to substitute other types of clay (home-made, bread dough, etc), but the results will not be quite the same as polymer clay and I can’t vouch for the results).

 Robin Brady-Boxwell

http://www.CrownJewelMiniatures.com

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