Polymer clay a work in progress

Today I am working on a wedding cake topper, the bride to be is Welsh and the groom is American so they want to include the flags on the cake topper...I have started them last night and I'm quite pleased so far, although he is to be wearing a kilt so it's gonna be a long one!

I though it might be nice to show the progress so far, I still have to decorate her dress in a lace design I had to make a new stamp for this, oh should have shown that one... that's for another post!  This is the second attempt at my bride, I usually bake before adding the clothing, I find that you get a better tidier finish by doing it this way, but this bold bride decided to fall over drunk in the oven, I was too busy watching a tv programme to noitce, so had to start all over again, normally my brides don't need supporting in the oven but the doppleganger was promptly propped up by two mugs, no not two men, two coffee mugs!! lol!!!

So far I have the bride her dress on, not decorated and have the groom with only his undies!!

I hope to have them finished by the weekend........ look forward to showing them off come Saturday..

Thanks for looking!

Birthday cake topper

I've done quite a few birthday cake toppers of late, the most intricate one I have done recently is one I created for a Bank Manager, who turned 30 recently.

The brief for this cake topper was 1. she really loves her dog, a little basset hound, 2. she really loves bling! 3. she has always wanted one of those dressing table's with the lights around it, 4. she also loves shopping makeup and handbags! Her friends were buying this as a present for her birthday so they also wanted an award for the best branch manager to be pride of place on her dressing table.

Not a lot of work there then? Well I set to work on the dressing table, making the body and mirror first to see how heavy they would be before I decided on how thick to make my legs... the cake topper grew from there.

It took me about 14 hours from start to finish, spread over about 3 weeks to complete, I like to leave my toppers to really cool before working on them again so I usually go and work on something else while I'm waiting on things cooling.. or more than usually I have a little browse (3 hours or so) on facebook, why is facebook so enthralling?  I used liquid clay and coloured it with red oil paints to look like spilled nail polish on the dressing table, tiny little perfume bottles and of course some MAC makeup to complete the look.
The floor is strewn with tiny handbags and shoes, I even used flourescent clay for the lights so they will glow in a dim light...

Anyway I will post a few pics of the 30th birthday topper

Polymer Clay work station

So here we are with my second post in 2011, I thought I would share my work station I use for my polymer clay work.

Our home is an apartment, so unlike other lucky polymer clay artists I'm unable to have a dedicated crafting room... so my craft is practiced in the sitting room!! Sometimes it can be hard to seperate life, or should I say television from distracting me so a lot of my work ends up being done late into the evening after the last soap opera has finished!!!

So my work station is essentially our dining table, I have to say we never really used it before I started to work with polymer clay so I don't feel all that bad that I have taken over the table!!

I always cover my table with parchment paper to stop any clay damaging the wood.  If you have ever seen what raw polymer clay can do to plastics or polished surfaces you would be quite vigilant about protecting your surface!

My actual work surface is two glass placemats, which I place ontop of my parchment paper.  For baking my pieces I use a white wall tile.

For storing my tools my husband made me the two tool holders from scrap wood (I'll show you some more of my tools that my husband made me in another post, he's quite a handy man to have around!) I use old biscuit box's for storing my clay, again I line my box's with parchment paper and use ziplock bags to store opened clay.

The most important tool I have on my workstation is my pasta machine..... I love the one I have, this is my third pasta machine, unfortunately the branded machines that are designed for polymer clay aren't really widely available in Ireland, I have had two other machines that were not ideal for my needs, my latest machine is much more suitable for the heavy use that I put it through. 

Speaking of my pasta machine, I recently came across a tutorial from the lovely Iris Mishly the CEO of polypediaonline  who makes the most fabulous polymer clay jewellery, she suggested to use a chocolate box lid under your pasta machine to avoid messing up your work station.  I used a biscuit tin lid to collect the clay that crumbles from my pasta machine, you can find the tutorial here

My other trusty essentials on my work station are my baby wipes and gloves, although these can be very drying on the hands so I always have a good hand moisturiser around to keep my fingers "fairy soft!"

Well I hope you have liked my little tour around my workstation, I promise to show some of my more unusual tools in my tool box soon!

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

New blog and my cake toppers

Welcome to my new blog.  I'm hoping that this blog will be a bit more successful, I have tried blogging before, but as I have a little bit of a short attention span, maybe regular updates might not be my first priority but I will promise to myself to try and at least update with some pictures of my cake toppers.

Feels a little silly knowing that I am talking (typing really) to myself, but hey everyone's got to start somewhere right?  Some might say I should be used to it by now!!!

I had been making beads with my polymer clay, I use fimo and sculpey, but mostly fimo, but stumbled on making little figures a couple of years ago.  I don't have as much time as I would like to make them but I hope to try in 2011 to MAKE time!!!

OK to start off my new blog I will post some pictures....

You can see more of my cake toppers on my website Happy Cake Toppers or if you would like to become a fan on facebook Happy Cake Toppers Facebook

Thanks for reading!!!