Monday, February 16, 2015

18” Doll Jam Tarts



Our project this week is really simple and requires just a few materials.



The first place I am going to send you though is the hardware or DIY store not the craft store. To form your tarts you will need some size 12 Finishing Washers. These are pretty inexpensive and you will be able to use them over and over again to make doll food items. Mine cost $1.18 per package of 6 washers at Home Depot last week.

The other things you will need are:
Polymer clay in a light dough color-( I used Premo's Ecru but you could also use Fimo Sahara or Sculpey III Tan.)


Clay knife/blade or craft knife

A variety of colors of soft pastel chalks. (here is a link to the ones I use but any brand is fine) important- you want soft pastels not oil pastels be sure to read the label.

A brush to apply the chalks- I prefer to use an eyeshadow brush (check the dollar store) but a paint brush will also work

Translucent Liquid Sculpey- (TLS for short) this is a liquid polymer clay and is used for many things. You could substitute Sculpey Bake and Bond or Fimo Deco
Gel if you need to.

A round tool to help press the clay into the washer (tart pans) I used the hand of a powder/ blush brush.

Toothpicks

Something to help you get the TLS out of the container- I use a double pointed knitting needle but you could use a toothpick or a wooden skewer. You might even have good luck just pouring it out but I like the control I get with using a tool to get out just what I want.

A piece of aluminum foil- to mix you TLS with chalks on.

Paper plate to bake your tarts on

Oven to bake your project in.

We are going to start by making the tart shells. Use your finger to press a ball of dough colored clay into each washer. With just a bit of trial and error you will quickly figure out what size ball of clay you need.

Then use a round tool to form the tart shell. Try to keep the edge even around the top.

Use a knife or clay blade to cut the excess clay off that comes through the hole in the bottom of the washer. If you skip this step you probably won't be able to remove your tarts from their pans.

Now use a toothpick or similar tool to make some marks around the rim of your tart shell just like the real ones have. You can make any design you want to, I kept mine really simple.

Now we need to make our tart shells look like they have been baked. To this we are going brush them with some of the chalks. First find golden yellow, medium reddish brown and a darker brown colors of chalk. Use your craft knife to scrape off a bit of the golden yellow and brush this over the edge of each tart shell. Follow up with the reddish medium brown and then the dark brown- in that order. I like to scrape each color off into what is left from the previous color to help blend them a bit easier.

Transfer your tarts to the paper plate you are going use to bake them on.

Now the fun part begins.

Decide how many colors/flavors of tarts you are going to make.


Make a small puddle of the TLS on a piece of foil (or other surface) for each color. Now scrape off some of the chalk pastel in the correct colors to the puddles of TLS and mix with a toothpick. Use the toothpicks to carefully drip the chalk-TLS mixtures into the tart shells.

Bake the tart shells are 275 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 minutes.

If you want to make the tops shiny- totally optional step- use some clear Gallery Glass paint to carefully coat just the TLS portion of your tarts. I think I like them better without this step but I know some people like the shiny look better.

When everything is dry (if you did the optional step) and cooled simply pop your tarts out of their molds and use in a display.

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