Bookmice - Let's Make Some!

This cute (and useful) bookmark is a great little craft to make with the kids or a quick and easy gift for all your friends!

The original polymer clay tutorial is from the National Wildlife Federation crafts page .   We have edited that polymer clay tutorial and converted it to the air-dry clay tutorial shown below.

You'll never lose your place with these easy-to-make bookmarks!

What You Need:

• Leather string (jewelry cord or shoelace)
• brown, gray or tan air-dry-clay (enough for body & ears) 
• black air-dry clay (for eyes and nose)

Makin's Clay, Hearty Clay and Model Magic are some of the air-dry clay brands that are available in colors but you may pre-tint other (white) air-dry clays using your craft paints.  Just add a little paint to a ball of clay and knead to mix evenly.   You may also send most air-dry clays (such as Paperclay) thru a pasta machine to blend color.  If your brand of clay is a very sticky type, it may not work so well in the pasta machine!  ;-)

Note: Delight Clay is a very lightweight paperclay and would be great for these bookmarks.  Das and a few other brands may be too heavy and not suitable for this use.

What You Do:
1.  Cut a piece of leather string about 10 inches long. Tie a knot at one end.

2.   Mold a lump of clay around the knotted end of the string. Shape the clay into the form of a mouse's body, as shown. (large teardrop)    Use very small amounts of water to smooth surface if necessary.

3.  Add clay ears, eyes, and nose. Press them down firmly to the mouse's body so they won't fall off.   Add white glue if they refuse to stick.    Optional:  Two small black beads can be used for eyes.

4.  Set aside on a flat surface to dry!  It may take a day or two.   (Don't try to speed up drying, you may end up with cracks.)

That's it!  Now, put your bookmouse to use!

How to Make a Clay Birdhouse

This clay birdhouse was made using self-hardening (terra cotta) clay and a balloon.   Instructions from the National Wildlife Federation found here:   Clay-Birdhouse

Add your own flowers and other decorations and maybe a little color!

How to make a cloth doll look like clay

Quite often dolls are completely sculpted from air-dry clays, but there are also a number of techniques used by cloth doll artists to enhance their creations.  There are cloth-over-clay techniques and clay-over-cloth.  In addition, many doll artists will create a cloth body that has a clay head (often with clay hands and feet also) .

These instructions from Rivkah Mizrahi show you how  to make a cloth body look like it's sculpted from clay.  She uses Creative Paperclay. See blog at Dollmakers Muse

Garden wall vignette tutorial

Use your air-dry-clay to create this miniature vignette.   Sized and shaped to suit your own needs. Add mini plants and other decorative items...maybe a mini puppy too!    Tuturial at Hedgehog Homes.

How to make Noah's BJD Doll

A couple of days ago we featured a BJD tutorial on a Russian website, this is another BJD tutorial showing you some additional techniques.    Noah's Doll is sculpted with an air-dry clay stone clay (most likely LaDoll clay).

This site is in Japanese but has been translated to English.
English version.  

What is BJD you ask!

The following description of a BJD was taken from the Noah's Doll tutorial:
It is a kind of a doll with ball-and-socket joints in its body, arms and legs. Limbs and head are joined together by loops of elastic. There are many variations in the way to join each part of a doll.

The drawing at the right shows the basic construction of Noah's doll.
Arms are attached by elastic running through the armholes and torso.

Each leg has its own piece of elastic.  Loops of elastic run from the ankle up through the knee, through the leg-hole and up to the head.  Both loops being hung on a hook inside the neck.

Other ends of the elastic are attached to small "S" shaped hooks  inside the wrists and ankles respectively.

If constructed properly and is well-balanced, a BJD can stand on its own.

Of course, to have this type of joint stringing, the doll must be hollow.   There are several different methods for accomplishing this.   Noah's doll uses a combination of Styroform, sawdust clay and stone clay (LaDoll).    All air-dry products. 

If sawdust clay is not available to you, Celluclay (an instant papier mache pulp) or  an air-dry clay such as Paperclay could possibly be substituted for constructing the base form over the Styrofoam.    Do not use polymer clay for base layer because the Styrofoam armature CANNOT be placed in oven.

I think the main reason for using the sawdust clay is that (1) it's the traditional way and (2) is to keep down the cost and the weight.  The Styrofoam armature will be removed after the "core" layer has dried....then every part will be hollow.   This "core" layer will be the base for applying the final layer of  LaDoll  and the detail modeling.   LaDoll dries very hard and durable and can be sanded and polished to a fine finish.  

Hope you enjoy this tutorial and try making your own BJD.   For future reference, I will be adding this tutorial to my Air Dry Clay Tutorial Directory.