Doll Size Salad

 

Watch the video here.

I know I have a green salad tutorial on my channel from a few years ago. However, since the materials that were used to make it are hard to find I have come up with what I think is a much better method. All the materials needed for the project today are easy to get all year round.

First lets talk about the paints I am using. I picked out 5 different colors of green craft paint. Any green will work as long as it doesn’t have a strong blue undertone. Look for ones that lean mostly toward the yellow end of green. Try to have some that are dark and some light and then some in between. We are making something like the “spring mix” bagged salad mixture. So if you need to just take a good look at a bag of salad next time you get a chance. I also have a bottle of a reddish color, mine today is called wine. I like to add some leaves to the salad that look like radicchio or red cabbage, or some other reddish leafy thing. It just makes the bowl of salad look more interesting. (also those are the salads I like to eat in real life so that’s what I make for the dolls too….)

We are using white tissue paper for our leaves, the kind that is sold near the wrapping paper in many stores.

No matter what type of surface you are working on protect it with something that wet paper won’t stick to. I am using waxed paper but parchment paper or even freezer paper (slick side up) would also work. The wet paper is going to be very fragile until it dries and it will want to stick to whatever is under it.

I like to tear the sheet of tissue paper into a piece that just fits on my work tile. Then using a wide paint brush give one side of the paper a coat of one of the colors of paint.

Since I am doing almost an entire sheet of tissue between the various colors I set up a drying area off to the side of my work area. This was simply a large cutting board covered in waxed paper. After I painted each piece of tissue paper I moved it and it’s bottle of paint over to the drying area. This way I was able to paint all the colors and have them drying. Do be sure to keep those bottles of paint with the pieces of paper because it makes it much easier to be sure you are adding the same color to the backside of the piece. And that is the next step. Once the first side dries turn the pieces over and paint the same color on the other side of the paper. Allow this to dry completely.

Once the paint dries I like to tear all the colors of tissue into doll “bite size” pieces. Don’t worry if some end up bigger this is just the first step in the process and you will have a couple more opportunities to make them the size you like. Do tear off any parts of the paper that are not painted and tear off the straight edges. You are aiming for torn leaf shapes.

Now we can add some shape to our leaves. Do this by crumpling up the torn pieces. You don’t want tight balls just kind of make fluffy balls with the pieces. If you come to any really large pieces you can tear them down more as you go.

This is the way that works best for me. I have tried doing both the tearing step and the crumpling step at the same time and I found it took me way longer to get done. If I do one step at a time it goes much quicker. Do it however works best for you.

Now for the fun part we are going to make our salads. First I am showing you how to make a big bowl of salad to set on the table. For this I found these bowls at Dollar Tree. They are over with the party supply dishes and they are pretty much the perfect size to serve salads and such things for the dolls. They come 6 to a package so we can have a lot of fun with these.

 

To make sure the salad doesn’t go all over we are going to be gluing it down into the bowl. This is the step that caused this video to be a week late. So I am going to show you how I am now doing this with the things I learned last week.

For attaching our salad I am using Mat Mod Podge (also available at the Dollar Tree so pick it up on the same trip when you get the bowls) The most important thing is DO NOT TRY TO RUSH THIS PROCESS!!! That was the big mistake I made and some of my Mod Podge was still wet a week later. The bowl I made this week is dry and ready to go.

Start by adding a very thin layer of Mod Podge to just the bottom of the bowl. Then carefully add a layer of the salad pieces. You want to cover the Mod Podge with just a thin layer of the paper. 

 

Then let the Mod Podge dry until it turns clear. I know it is tempting to keep adding more salad. Don’t! Just let it dry. If you keep going this might not ever dry. Trust me.

Once dry we can slowly add more layers of salad until the bowl is as fun as you want. You can also add some other veggies into the salad also if you wish. I know we have tutorials on the channel for things like carrots, celery, radishes, and tomatoes. There are probably more but those are the ones I am thinking of right this moment. Any of those could be tucked in amongst the salad greens so that they peek out and make the salad look even more real. Or you could bake off small pieces of clay in appropriate colors to add to give the idea that there are chopped veggies in the salad.

Next I wanted to be sure that you could have some individual servings of salad for the dolls. For those I start with a piece of scrap white card stock. I cut a rough oval (about 1 ¼” by ¾”) and glue as much of the salad as I feel looks right for the serving using the same Mod Podge as for the bowl.  Do be sure to work on a nonstick surface like wax paper or parchment. Allow to dry completely before adding it to your doll’s dinner plate along with some of the other foods we’ve made for the dolls to enjoy.

As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.

Doll Size Grilled Steaks

 

Watch the video here.

I do want to apologize up front because I didn’t manage to take any pictures until about half way through the process. I am so sorry I just totally forgot.

I think a lot of us think of steaks on the grill in the summer so I figured the dolls should join in too. This is the first time using the grill mark tool we made a while back and it worked just as I wanted it to. I love how easy this simple tool makes getting nice evenly spaced grill marks on the food. It was a bit messy but well worth it.

So this is a really easy project to make even though it might not look easy when you first look at the finished steaks. So let’s talk about the process step by step.

We only need a couple of colors of clay for this project. The main color is Fimo in Caramel, this in my opinion is the perfect base color for the cooked steaks. The other color we need is our “fat mixture” a combination that is 1 part white clay (any brand) mixed with 2 parts translucent clay (again any brand) I actually keep this color mix in a bag in my clay stash mixed and ready to go since I use it so much. The brands of clay don’t matter so if you run into a good polymer clay sale grab the two colors and mix a batch to have on hand.

Start by rolling a fat snake of the caramel color clay. At this point the size is not really important just make a fat short drum like shape. It should be more than ¾” wide since that is the size we will roll it down to be later.

Now use your clay knife and start a cut going down one side. Just start the cut then use your fingers to tear the clay into 2 pieces. Add a thin layer of the fat mixture and put the two pieces back together. Don’t worry about the bits of clay that extend on the sides of the snake those are good.

Now add another cut/tear to the drum but don’t go all the way through stop part way into the drum and add more of the fat mixture. Repeat this as many times as you wish, I like to do just the one all the way through and one part way but you could do more depending on the look you are after.

Now add more of the fat mixture to the outside of the drum. You don’t want so much that it wraps all the way around but do as much as you want. Also it is be better if it isn’t perfectly straight because you want to have each steak you make look a bit different with a different amount of fat in/on each one.

Now reduce the snake down to ¾” in diameter. Just keep rolling it between your hands and one your work surface until it reaches the correct size. You don’t have to be exact just get it close to this size.

Now cut off the very ends of the clay to get rid of those sunken parts that always form. Now measure how long the remaining snake (or more correctly I should be calling this a cane at this point) is. You want to cut off individual steak pieces that around ½” long. Again they don’t have to be exactly the same size, steaks in real life are not the same.

Today I am just showing you how to make a very generic boneless steak. If you want to make something specific find a photo and go by that for fat placement, shape and size.

Now we are going to take those round pieces and make them look like steaks. First I like to use my fingers to make them be a bit more oval shaped but not a perfect oval just not perfectly round. Then use your fingers to flatten them our to be around ¼” thick. This gives a nice size and proportion when finished. We are using our fingers instead of rolling with a roller because our fingerprints will make the clay resemble the real meat a lot better with no extra texturing needed.

Now we get to use our artist chalks to add some color and make these steaks look more realistic.

Start with a combination of some red chalk and some rust colored chalk. Mix these together then use a cotton swab to add a line going around the meaty part of the sides of the steaks. Don’t go all the way to the top or bottom stay in the center and stay of the fat areas. This will be that line on the side of a correctly cooked steak.

Next we need to coat all sides of the steaks with a coat of yellow ocher chalk. This color on the steaks does so much to bring them to life. After the fat areas get the yellow ocher chalk they suddenly look cooked, so does the meat it just makes them look so much better.

Once you are happy with that layer of color add some dark brown chalk to the meat areas of the top and bottom of each steak. You just want to darken up the meat a bit don’t go overboard with this step.

Now the messy part we are going to add some grill marks to our steaks. Start by getting paper towels and wet wipes ready. Then get a piece of black chalk and apply it directly to enough of the bars on the grill mark tool to cover the size of your steak.

Then carefully press the tool into the top surface of each steak. Reapply chalk as needed and be very careful about not getting the black chalk where you don’t want it. I try to only touch the black chalk with my left hand and everything else with my right. I still clean my fingers often.

Once this process is finished bake the steaks at the recommended temperature for your clay for 15 minutes and allow to cool to room temperature.

Off camera I made some black sand, we’ve colored sand in other videos so I decided to not do this on camera this time. It is a simple process, you just use an alcohol marker to color an area (I used some aluminum foil this time. Then spray on some isopropyl alcohol to create basically an alcohol ink, then stir in some white sand and allow to dry.

Now brush a thin coat of a clear mat finish, I’m using Mat Mod Podge then sprinkle on a bit of the black sand. This will add some texture to make the steaks look more realistic, I do just the top and allow to dry.

Once the Mod Podge dries give the edges of each steak a thin coat of the same Mod Podge then brush a thin coat over the layer of sand to seal that in place. Once this all dries flip the steaks over repeat the layer of Mod Podge with sand and allow to dry. Then give that side a top coat of the same Mod Podge and allow to dry.

As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.

Doll Size Corn on the Cob

 

Watch the video here.

This week we are making the dolls some corn on the cob. And I have to say I had problems, not because the project is very difficult my problems stemmed from the fact that the only package of clay the correct color I have in my stash is so soft it was almost impossible to work with. I spent an entire day experimenting with different options and came up with the only workable solution for this clay. If your clay ends up being this soft hopefully you will benefit from my trials here. If your clay is acting like is should your corn on the cob will go much better.

As I talk to you in this blog post about the steps I took to make the project I will also go over how I would have normally done this and how you can make the project no matter how soft your clay is.

The fist step this week was to make the base corn cobs that we will be building our corn on the cob on. This was a simple process and it was very much like the way we started last week when we made the ears of corn. I started by conditioning some Original Sculpey but any slightly off-white clay would work here. Then I rolled that clay into ¼” snakes which were cut down to 2” long pieces. If your dolls want to serve their corn as half cobs cut theirs into 1” pieces. (growing up one of my friend’s mom always cut the cobs of corn in half and it thought it was strange, my friend thought it was strange that my mom didn’t do that)

Then bake these corn cob bases at the temperature recommended for your clay for 10 minutes and allow to cool to room temperature.

Now we can cover the cob bases with the corn kernels. This a fairly easy process. First pick the color clay you want to use corn comes in a few different tones of yellow and even white. The one I am making today is the bright yellow I remember from my childhood and what I consider to be “normal” corn color. From time to time I see lighter colored corn in the produce department at my local store but not often.

Normally at this point I would mix my colored clay with a translucent clay, about equal amounts, to give a more realistic look to the finished corn. However, the package of Sculpey III that I had in my stash did not act nicely at all. I am not sure what is wrong with this batch of clay but it is much softer than any other clay I have ever used. I even double checked the label and I don’t see anything indicating that it is different. When I did what I consider the “normal” step of adding the translucent clay to it I got a clay that would not hold the texture I added to it. When baked the corn kernel texture had pretty much disappeared. So that was not going to work. So I decided to just work with this clay on its own with no translucent. It still looks pretty good with baked and it held the texture really well.

So roll the colored clay out into a sheet using craft sticks to make a nice even layer and cut pieces that are 1” by ¾” Now normally I would be adding a very thin layer of liquid polymer clay to the back of this piece before adding it to the cured clay. However, that was the other issue I ran into with this particular clay. When I tried that I ended up with something that was almost the consistency of pudding. It was just a mush, no longer a sheet of clay. Since this clay is so soft and so sticky I decided to skip the liquid clay and it seems to be holding just as well as normal clay would with the liquid clay.

So my advice to you is if you are using a normal package of clay that is a normal consistency add some translucent clay to the colored clay and roll that mixture out into a sheet of clay. Cut the pieces to fit your cob bases and add a very thin layer of liquid clay to the back and carefully add the layer of yellow clay to the base.

Now it is time to add the corn kernels. to our ears of corn. To do this I am using a wire mesh strainer from the dollar store. (remember you can never use it for food again once you use it for clay, it is now a clay tool) Add a bit of cornstarch to the surface of the wire mesh and holding onto the very ends of the ear of corn roll it on the mesh pushing down to get a good texture. Just keep rolling until you are happy.

 

 

Then carefully transfer to your baking surface and bake at the recommended temperature for 10 minutes and allow to cool.

 

 

And there it is, corn on the cob for the dolls to enjoy this summer.

As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.