joanne's 18" dolls: 18” Doll Cheese Crackers

I have another really simple polymer clay food project for you today. As I was eating my lunch I took a look at the simple cheese cracker I was eating and thought these would be a great project here on this blog.

Finished doll size cracker with the real thing

You won't need a lot of tools or materials for this especially since I decided to show you how to do this with just one color of clay.

What you will need:

FIMO Sunflower Yellow

Yellow polymer clay- I found that FIMO brand in Sunflower was the perfect color.

Some artist chalk in a golden yellow (yellow ochre) and orange

A brush to apply the chalk (I use an eyeshadow brush from the dollar store)

Something to roll your clay out with- I use a pasta machine dedicated to clay but you can use a roller or straight sided bottle for this.

A knife to cut the clay- clay blades are best and can be found near the polymer clay at the craft store.

Ball ended tool, brush and pointy tool

A “pointy tool” I use a dollar store dental pick- a toothpick or a pin would also work

A ball end tool- you could also round off one end of a toothpick for this

A work surface- I use a ceramic tile

A ruler

A paper plate to bake on- the uncoated kind

An oven to bake in

It is nice to have some of the real crackers to use as a reference while you work.

The first step as in all polymer clay projects is to condition the clay. All this means is to take a small amount of clay out of the package and work it with you hands until it becomes more pliable. Once your clay is conditioned roll it out very thin. My pasta machine has 6 thickness settings and I use the 4^th one to do this. It probably about 1/32” thick. It doesn't have to be perfect but remember the thinner the better to stay in scale.

Now cut yourself a rectangle of clay that is about 2” by 1”

our piece of clay

Next cut this lengthwise into 3 approximately equal strips each about 1/3” wide.

The next cuts will be crosswise and again about 1/3” apart. This 2” by1” piece will give you 18 crackers. Take your time and try to make your cuts straight and your little squares fairly square.

Now before you move the crackers use your pointy tool to make a small hole in the center of each cracker. This is much easier to do while they are still in a together. Also while they are still on your tile brush the top side with some dust from both the sticks of chalk. You don't need to go very heavy just a light brushing of chalk to give a bit of a baked color. This side will be the bottoms of our finished crackers.

before chalk

after chalk

Now carefully move your clay squares to your paper plate being sure to put them chalked side down.

Now the slightly tricky and very tedious part. You will use your pointy tool again to make the little marks around the edges of each square. I find it helps a lot to rub my index finger on my left hand over the golden yellow chalk and then use that to hold the clay gently while I use the pointy tool in my right hand to make the marks. These marks need to be tiny but are so important to making the crackers look real.

The next step is really easy use that ball ended tool to make the hole in the top of the cracker. You should be able to see where you made the hole on the bottom side earlier just gently press the tool into that spot.

Now we are going to make these crackers look baked. Scrape both sticks of chalk to create a tiny amount of dust and use the brush to brush it over the top surface of the crackers.