I love polymer clay miniatures. And one day I will be able to make ones as lovely as the ones I see on Pinterest and Greenleaf. Above is a pic of my most recent try!
I've been using Sculpey's mold maker and although it works, it's not my favorite. The clay holds shape well, but after a while it hardens and is pretty much impossible to use. Also even when it is pliable it is very hard to bend enough to remove items once the mold has set and bits of clay always seem to stick to the bottom. I've watched quite a few tutorials online and I've seen some really good reviews for Amazing Mold Putty. Unlike Sculpey's mold maker you only have 3 minutes from the time you combine ingredients before the clay begins to set up. With Sculpey you can mold and remold you clay as often as you want before you bake it to set the mold. Amazing Mold Putty comes with 2 different plastic containers and requires that you mix equal portions of each. You have to mix very quickly and place whatever you are trying to mold in the clay within 3 minutes. Then depending on the thickness it takes 15-20 minutes for the mold to set - no baking required.
(Oh and I used a 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby to buy the Amazing Mold Putty!)
Above is my finished mold. It is extremely pliable and the clay slides in and out with absolutely no sticking so far. With Sculpey I always had to use flour to get my molded items back out of the clay.
Once again like other tutorials out there I used an electrical end cap to get the general shape of the cupcake bottom. One thing that I didn't do according to the instructions was to leave the item inside the clay until it was completely set. I think this is why my cupcake bottoms are a little smaller than I intended them to be - as the mold sets it shrinks just a bit. I only had one end cap to work with so next time I will either just make a single mold and leave the cap inside or I will use a slightly bigger end cap that way it won't matter if the mold shrinks a bit.
Here is my wonderful new Black and Decker toaster oven. I received a gift card to Target as a graduation gift and at first I thought I'd just buy something that we could use for the house, but I changed my mind and got something just for myself! We already have a toaster oven, and while it is a bit older and not nearly as nice looking as this one I didn't really want to cook alot of clay in it. Supposedly the clay is non-toxic, but I still worry about fumes. And this toaster comes with a knob for temperature setting that my old one doesn't have. I also bought an oven thermometer so I could test the temp and be sure I was cooking my clay correctly. The clay cooks at 275 degrees for 15 minutes. I add time as needed.
These are my first 12 cupcake bottoms. You can see how the bottoms are too small here. The edges look a little weird too, but I think once paper liners are added you won't be able to see it as much. In the top picture you can see the icing that I added to the cupcakes. I used Mod Podge Collage Clay, which is pretty much the consistency of icing. I used a #14 icing tip and closed the prongs tighter together with pliers so I could get a smaller string of icing. The collage clay air dries and with pieces this tiny it only took a few minutes to completely dry. I found someone online who makes and sells 1:12 icing tips so I am tempted to buy one just to see if it works any better. I expect I'll be practicing my technique quite a bit!
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