Fimo enameled bowls

I've been testing a variety of techniques for faux enameling and glazing, and I created various molds for bowls to do so. This is my favorite design, and my favorite technique so far. I used eye shadow for the base of the enameling and then added, after cooking the clay bowls, a coating of Craf-T metallic rub-on paste to the top after cooking. Then I outlined the edges with Krylon's 18 K. gold pen. The base for all was Fimo gold.

Perfect Pearls on Fimo

Here I did a test of the copper Perfect Pearls on brown clay and on white clay and you can see the difference that it made.

Testing Micas on Fimo

As you can tell, these are mini bowls made of copper-colored Fimo, and the middle picture shows what the plain clay looks like. I tried Pearl-Ex and Perfect Pearls and metallic eye shadow, and you can see all give similar effects. Because the clay is a dark copper, the effect of all is that of old copper. To get a lighter, newer, effect I'd need to use a lighter color of clay.

The eye shadow is from the dollar store and it and all of these are covered with Future so that the mica won't rub off.

Mica Powders

I decided to test two different brands, Pearl-Ex and Perfect Pearls, brushing them on a pink raw clay. On the right is PP, for Perfect Pearls, and PX on the left, for Pearl-Ex. After cooking I took this picture, and then used my finger for rubbing off the powder. The Perfect Pearls did rub off, but not as bad as the Pearl-Ex. I then washed the piece, and again, I felt more of the Perfect Pearls stayed on. All of the mica powder products, I've read, need some type of coating to protect them.

The coloring, as you can see, is quite similar. But I felt the coverage was better for these and the other tests I did of Perfect Pearls. But both products are great to use for special effects.

Platters for Mini Foods

Before I figured out how to make my own dishes and platters from clay I used to buy bolo tie clips from Hobby Lobby for that. They come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. As you can see from the one empty one in the picture, they have holes in the center but that's easily covered with clay and then the clay foods are baked right onto the clips.

Garage Sale Find

This is the top of a large glass jar and seems to be handmade. Look at all those useful minis! There are jars and cans of food, a tea pot, flowers, several different pots and pans, gravy boat, glass storage jars, a juicer, and a cookie jar and more glued on a bed of mini ferns. Everything will find a place in some mini kitchen I made.

Another Valentine's Miniature Tree

This time I decided to do a simple white tree with just pink roses, hearts and candy canes. The candy canes don't show up as well, though. I'll use this as the centerpiece for my dining room table. I've got a dome to fit over the whole tree, and a little tree skirt to add.