AIR DRY CLAY (MARTHA STEWART)
So I finally got myself some clay!!! First clay making ever and I was sooooo excited!
Since I don't have an oven, I decided to get Air Dry Clay.
Frankly speaking, I'm really attracted to their packaging. I could have went to daiso and grab some cheap air dry clay and try but I really wanted to get the kit since there's some mold I could try and they also have some tools etc. This is really good marketing I would say hah.
It includes:
5 colors of clay (white, 3 primary colours, brown)
2 detailing tools
4 silicone molds
floral tape
floral wire
instructions.
*note: I put my watermark at the top of the instruction booklet as I thought it was a good place, not in any way trying to infringe any copyright lol*
It's really smooth and soft, and the fact that you can mix and match the colours yourself with the primary colours is really interesting. Martha Stewart also has a videos regarding the air dry clay, like how to use it, keeping it workable with damp paper towels, and also how to make a rose!
Her fingers are so....delicate? It's obviously a skilled clay maker's hand. When I did it I was like "omg the petals lifbfgclsgfsjkhdbf"
For me, when I tried to sculpt the petals, it keeps on 'tearing', probably because the strength I put wasn't even throughout or something and it got 'torn off' because I was using too much strength... Had to try and in the end came up with another method which was just kinda rubbing it into the shape I want LOL. #fails
The two roses I made! While letting it air dry, of course I HAVE to try making a miniature out of it. Because. Miniatures. MINIATURES!!
The first one I did! Look at that sizeeeeeee. So happy. For a beginner who didn't even know air dry clay or clay for that matter, existed since about 3 months ago, I'd say I did a pretty good job. *patpat myself*
For the miniature one, what I did was I drew out the outline of the petals with my dotting tools on a flattened clay, and used my xacto knife to cut them out.
If you see clearly, you can see the 'lint' inside the clay and the end of the petals, as they kinda clumped together when I was cutting it. I think these lints were from the baby wipes (sprayed with water) I used which was obviously a bad idea now. Maybe it was just bad quality baby wipes. But I probably should have just wet my tissue papers or kitchen towels instead....
It was kind of annoying because I was worried about the clay drying up etc and the damp paper towels were also getting not so damp... That's probably one of the cons of air dry clay. When they start drying up it's really quite annoying.
I really like this picture, even though it was a random picture I took to show my boyfriend my progress.
The one on the left is the one I put together immediately after I cut out the petals and the right was put together after I kind of 'flatten' the cut out petals. I like the left one better even though the right one was much similar to the rose that the Martha Stewart video showed. Maybe because the left one was more..... 'curvy'.
After making a bunch of them! I like the colour scheme hurhur.
It was the miniature's turn to airdry, so I took the time to use my soft pastels to shade my bigger flowers. I think it was kinda fail LOL, another first attempt. And yeah, the leafy parts wasn't really made well.... The green was drying up and I couldn't smooth out the ends perfectly :( But it's alright, I gotta start somewhere and the first few times will definitely lean towards the failure side. HAHA. AT LEAST I TRIED YAY.
I used Decou-Page Matte as a glaze for my roses and I must say I don't really like it. In fact, I probably won't use it to glaze my clay items again. I've never really liked gloss and this does give it a shine to my roses which to me makes it look more plastic than natural. I only wanted the glaze to protect my pastels, not give it a shine...... Need to source for a proper one. :(
I understand that Decou-Page is mainly for paper crafters, scrapbooking and stuff like that but I trusted the sales person who sold me this and I disliked it lol. Again, first for everything~ Lesson learnt! I'll probably pass this glaze to my friend who is quite into scrapbooking.
Hahaha you can see the broken petals properly, so sad. And they don't look as thin and folded backwards 'naturally' as much as I would like to have. That's what lacking of skill does to you :(
I also made a mini vase for my mini flowers using scrap air dry clay which were drying. I did that by SPAMMING lots of water haha so it'll smooth out easily but it was still pretty hard to manipulate. Then I painted it with off white acrylic paint.
Left one was before I glazed it and I'm glad I took it to show my boyfriend before I glaze it haha. It looks so much better. It could be that my glazing skill sucks too (since it's also the first time I'm doing it) but I'm just sad I ruined it :( (In my own opinion haha)
That's it for this clay! I'm glad I bought it and try and instead of being envious, I'm making some miniatures myself! It's my first ever miniature and I'm quite happy about it. Yayyyy.
And of course, I have to try out their mold. I only tried this one cause I only have enough leftover scrap clays for one, and it was TOUGH. Mostly because it was drying up hahaha. Again, might be because I just suck at manipulating clay. :( But at least I got it hahahaha.
Can't wait to do more things regarding clay. I really want to try polymer clay though, because of the one big factor that it doesn't dry up. I shall get an oven soon....