? on sculptey

[minilover6]

For those of you who have worked with this sculptey clay...Does it shrink once it is baked? If so how much? Any other tips when working with it? I am inspired by all of you who are so creative and I want to try to make Christmas cookies for my gang. Any one have more sculptey pictures? Any new ideas?
You are all so creative I just hope mine turn out as good as the pictures I have seen. Thanks for the ideas! [img]smile.gif[/img]

[dornroeschen]

Cherry, it's always a joy to look at your food albums - and the other doll albums too of course [img]wink.gif[/img]

Originally posted by Sakurako:
You can color Sculpey with oil pastels before baking or with acryllic paint after baking.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Which reminds me, I used these pastels on the pre-baked items and I always use a clear varnish on the baked pieces. With Liquid FIMO I added oil paint to get the desired colour for my jellies.

Going to add some pictures later.

[dornroeschen]

As far as I have noticed - but then I've only worked with FIMO as we don't get Sculpey in Austria - it doesn't shrink or if it does it's so minimal that you hardly notice it.

Here is some information about the different polymere clays and their handling as well as the FIMO history, which I have posted before. The information about the different polymere clays is from the book "The Polymer Clay Techniques Book' by Sue Heaser - a great book btw:


Properties of the main brands of Polymer Clay:

Softness rating: 1 = soft; 5 = firm.
NB: Polymer clays harden gradually with time so this is a guide only.

Baked clay strenght: * = fragile; ***** = very strong


FIMO CLASSIC
Manufactured in Germany
Softness rating: 2-5 (currently very variable)
Number of colors: 24
Baked clay strength: ***
Smoothable? some colors
Best for: jewelry, millefiori, miniatures, flowers, and dolls (Puppenfimo soft doll clay)

FIMO SOFT
Manufactured in Germany
Softness rating: 2
Number of colors: 48
Baked clay strength: ***
Smoothable? yes
Best for: for children and general hobby use

PREM! SCULPEY
Manufactured in USA
Softness rating: 3
Number of colors: 32
Baked clay strength: ****
Gold effects? yes
Smoothable? yes
Best for: jewelry, millefiori, and all fine art techniques. Excellent artist's color range for mixing. This clay has a slightly tacky surface, and the translucent version is very translucent

SCULPEY III
Manufactured in USA
Softness rating: 1
Number of colors: 40
Baked clay strength: *
Smoothable? yes
Best for: for children and general hobby use. Baked surface has a matt quality

CERNIT
Manufactured in Germany
Softness rating: 4 (softens increasingly with hand heat)
Number of colors: 44
Baked clay strength: *****
Smoothable? no
Best for: jewelery, general hobby use, and advanced doll making (several doll clays). Porcelain effect in all colors.

CREALL-THERM
Manufactured in the Netherlands
Softness rating: 4
Number of colors: 28
Baked clay strength: ***
Smoothable? yes
Best for: Jewelry, millefiori, miniatures, flowers, and dolls (flesh clay). Cuts very cleanly and has a non-tacky surface

MODELLO/FORMELLO
Manufactured in Germany
Softness rating: 4
Number of colors: 24
Baked clay strength: **
Smoothable? no
Best for: general hobby use

MODELENE
Manufactured in Australia
Softness rating: 4
Number of colors: 31
Baked clay strength: *****
Smoothable? no
Best for: jewelry, miniatures, general hobby use, and advanced doll making (flesh clays)

DU-KIT
Manufactured in New Zealand
Softness rating: 4
Number of colors: 25
Baked clay strength: *****
Smoothable? yes
Best for: jewelry, miniatures, and general hobby use


Another great book is Food Displays: Step-By-Step Instructions for over 40 Projects by Sue Heaser:
Although it's for dollhouse food you just change the scale to fit your AG's and you have some wonderful mealtimes ahead for them.

If you have every wondered what FIMO stands for, here is the history of FIMO - the mother of all polymer clay products - translated from the history, which unfortunately is only available in German:

In 1939 K?the Kruse, one of Germany's most famous doll artists, was looking for a new material to make the doll head production easier. A brand-new material had been developed and no one knew what to use it for, she tried it but it didn't work out properly. Her daughter Sophie Rehbinder-Kruse, then experimented a lot with the new material adding other pastes and colors and created vases, mosaics, tiles, miniatures, figurines, toys for children and flowers with thin petals. During the difficult war years it was also used to produce practical things like table mats or shoe soles for sandals, which could be exchanged for food.

In 1954 Sophie Rehbinder-Kruse finally introduced the product to the public and had named it "FIMOIK" - using part of her nickname "Fifi" and the product she mostly made out of it, mosaics (in German "Mosaik").

They had a good connection with the toy shops due to their doll manufacture, and therefore could successfully sell "K?the Kruse's Ofenknete" (K?the Kruse's Oven knead) as a creative toy for children.

In 1965 Eberhard Faber bought all rights and licences of the material, improved the recipes and started selling it as FIMO.


Last but not least, do a search for 'FIMO food' - there were quite a few threads about how to make different food with polymer clay - especially some great advice from Cherry (Sakurako). The most important thing however, is to have fun and just 'mess' around. It's easy to use and if you're not so happy with the result, as long as you didn't bake it, you can re-use it.

Happy Sculpey/FIMO food making!

[Sakurako]

Hi, Miki! Hmmm, it doesn't seem like I can add much. However...

Sculpey is soft and will get sticky if you handle it too much. You can make it easier to roll and cut if you put it in the refrigerator for 20 minutes when that happens.

It doesn't shrink.

It doesn't have a T in its name.

You can add things to it to give it texture. For example, if you want to make sugar cookies, you can roll a little ball of sculpey in transparent glitter before you bake it. Or you can use chocolate colored beads for chocolate chips and just squish them into the clay before baking.

You can color Sculpey with oil pastels before baking or with acryllic paint after baking.

My first major project working with Sculpey and FIMO was making Christmas cookies. It's fun to find a variety of doll sized cookie cutters. Some of my best ones came from the kitchen section of a hardware store.

http://www.imagestation.com/album/pi...?id=2118571773

Here is a links to an albums that Lindy made for me to show off the foods I made for her for her birthday and for last Christmas.

http://www.imagestation.com/album/pi...?id=2114685947