Doll Size Mugs

Watch the video here.

This week we are going to get to play with some polymer clay! I had so much fun with this project that it was hard to stop playing long enough to make the video. LOL

I filmed this video on Sunday to upload for you to see on Monday, I really try to have the videos done a few days ahead so I am confident that you will get a video on schedule. This week I do admit that I played with the mugs a few too many days but I thought it would be okay since I knew I had Saturday completely free to film. I did film a video that day but it was one of those days that everything went wrong. I should have stopped early in the day and looked at the problems but instead I went on trying to fix it as I went along. It didn't work and it was very late in the day when I figured out what I had done in the beginning that had set me up to fail. I am hoping you can learn from this mistake so you don't make the same ones.

I had been planning to make mugs for a while but just hadn't gotten around to it until this last week. I dug through my stash of wood pieces and found a 1” diameter wood dowel and convinced my son to cut off a couple of pieces of it for me. I knew he would do a better job of getting a straight cut than I would. He of course wanted an exact measurement on how long I wanted the pieces. I didn't have one I told him anywhere from 2” to 3” long. He hates when I don't have an exact measurement, but he is used to me by now so he just split the range in half and cut them 2 ½” long. He did a really good job getting them cut too even though neither of us wanted to walk all the way out to the barn to use the power saw. He just cut them with the little branch trimming saw I keep in the house. I tell you this so you know you don't need any fancy equipment to cut this, just get them cut straight (or as close as you can)

I did find after my first try at making a mug that wrapping the dowel pieces with a piece of parchment paper was really important. I didn't do this on the first one and ended up cutting it up to get it off my dowel. After I wrapped the dowels in parchment paper I no longer had problems with the clay sticking. I did just glue the parchment to itself and not to the dowel. I think it helps in the process of removing the mug.

The other thing you need to prepare before you make your mugs is the strip of paper (cut 1 ¼” by the width of the paper)  that I wrapped around the mug to cut the top edge. I tried several different ways of measuring this area to cut it and this worked the best. I first tried to cut the strip of clay before I wrapped it around the dowel but found that the process of getting the seam in the clay to disappear made the top edge crooked. I tried using my ruler to measure but it was really hard to juggle the ruler, the dowel with the clay on it, and the knife to trim the clay. The paper wrap was an idea of desperation and it works really well.

Now onto yesterday's disaster of a taping day. I decided to make a yellow and orange marbled color like I repeated today for the video. The first big mistake I made was to pick a yellow clay that was just too soft. You see I saw a package of Lemonade color by Sculpey III. It is such a pretty yellow and it went with the orange clay so nicely that I used it. I should have known better. The soft nature of the clay caused a bunch of problems that plagued me all day. First off it wouldn't stay up straight on the dowel, it almost slumped down. I had a huge problem getting the sides of the mug to be straight vertically. Then it kept picking up fingerprints every time I touched it. Of course the more I worked with it trying to fix the issues the softer it got. The fact that my lights that I use to tape videos give off heat didn't help that issue at all either. Next I could not get the top of the mug to be straight. I measured several times but because every time I put pressure on the sides of the mug the that area squished up a bit the top edge looked like a roller coaster track.

I finally got the mug to a point where I was willing to bake it then when I tried to take it off the dowel the handle snapped off! Another fault of the soft nature of the clay.

So please learn from my mistakes and stick to a firmer clay. Both Fimo and Premo worked just fine for me.

Now let's talk about the colors I used in each mug:

 

Today's yellow/ orange marble- Fimo Mandarin Orange and Premo!
Cadmium Yellow.

 

 

 

Blue marble- Fimo Windsor Blue and Fimo Translucent Blue

 

Purple marble- unfortunately I don't remember what colors I used for this one. I thought I had left the clay out but I must have put them away.

Green with the Today is the day message- Fimo white then when it was baked I sponge painted some Ceramacoat Leaf Green on the the edges and handle. (I also painted the inside of the cup) then I glued on the little phrase that I had cut from some card making paper. Then I clear coated just like the other mugs.

 

 

Pink one- Body of the mug is Fimo Raspberry, the band and handle is made of
Fimo White and Fimo Black

 

The two brownish mugs are just made from clay from my scrap clay bag. Typically you will get a brownish color when you mix misc colors together.

 

To make these mugs look like ceramic instead of polymer clay I gave them a nice coat of Triple Thick. I do love this product for this purpose.

So there you have a fairly easy polymer clay project for you to do for your dolls.

Remember like so many projects this one has so many possibilities for decorating. Just look at mugs in your kitchen, in stores and online for inspiration. The sky really is the limit. You can paint these, use clay to make designs, add decals, add paper cutouts, whatever your imagination leads you.