Vanilla cake with chocolate frosting and orange curd (mini)

Miniature vanilla cake with orange curd and chocolate frosting

This weekend I made two mini cakes. Its been a few years since I made a mini cake. I think these turned out okay though.  Here are my step by step photos.

Brushing chalk on the cake layers to give them a cooked look. Yeah, Im not sure this is a necessary step, unless you do a naked cake. 

1. miz translucent, white and a cream colour together. Then texture with a toothbrush and dust with brown chalk (to give the look of being cooked)

2. Cut out some thinner brown rounds of the same size and some even thinner orange+translucent rounds.

3. Stack them up, and put the cake in the fridge to firm it up. When you cut into it you want it to be cold and firm so that it does not mush together when you cut it.

4. Cut out a slice and be sure to cut directly down (not on a slant).

5. Texture the cake layers (not the chocolate or orange layers). This is the worst part of the whole process. I use the tip of my scalpel to do the fluffing, others use a pin.

6. Frost the cake. The frosting is made by combining brown clay with liquid translucent clay. It will take about 10min of stirring/mushing to blend the two together.

Making a cake board. Chocolate frosting (bottom left) and chocolate bars (bottom right)

7. Finish decorating the cake. I made some orange slices from an old cane (tutorial). Make sure to texture each orange slice. I use a pin and make small indents in each segments. This way it catches the light much better after its been glazed and it looks more real. I also made a few chocolate bars for the cake "board".

Miniature food fridge magnets on my fridge right now. 

Miniature Pizza

Miniature polymer clay pizzas

I had a special request for a mini pizza magnet. I had never made a pizza before (not even a real edible one) so I started by watching  this tutorial . First of all.. the music on this video is adorable and makes me want to join hands with Pikachu and dance around my apartment.

Miniature Clay Pizzas:

Step 1: roll out a nickle sized ball of beige clay (mixed with translucent). Texture with a toothbrush then color with chalk.  Flip it over and roll up the sides.

Step 2: Add some cheese. Yellow-white-translucent clay. Make it look cheesy. :)

Step 3: Fill in the cheese holes with some tomato sauce (liquid translucent mixed with red chalk). I also added some toasted cheese marks with chalk. I think next time I'll do more of this. DO NOT ADD BLACK CHALK. It smears all over the place when you try to glaze it after baking.

Step 4: Add the toppings. This was actually a lot of fun. I would love tomato slices but every time I make a tomato cane it ends up looking like crap. Then bake and glaze. I think you should not glaze the bread.. I don't think bread should look wet and shiny...

Miniature Hawaiian pizza

Mushroom, bacon and olive miniature pizza

Every topping miniature pizza

Geekery2 (Polymer Clay Zelda Magnets)

polymer clay Hyrule shield

 

I just spent an awful amount of time making a miniature shield. It probably took 3 hours to condition the clay and cut out all the pieces with a scalpel. If I wanted to make miniature shields for a living I would have to sell them for $100/shield to make it worth my time! Oh, and some how find a miniature shield market.  On Etsy I just saw Hylian shield earrings, the size of a penny, selling for a couple bucks. Either that person pays themselves a sweatshop hourly rate or I am doing something wrong and there is a much easier way to make this shield.

To make this shield I needed:

• Polymer clay (blue, silver, gold, red)
• Glaze 
• Scalpel for cutting out the shapes.

Hylian shield out of polymer clay

Polymer clay Zelda magnets.

If I ever try to make this shield again, I will make a cardboard template first. I would also roll out the clay then chill it. My sweaty giant hands tend to turn clay into soup while I am trying to work with it.

N64 controller and Zelda magnets

In total I made a Hyrule shield, rupees, the blue cucco and the magic beans (above).

Miniature Shield Model

Geekery (Polymer Clay Super Mario Magnets)

Super Mario Magnets with Polymer Clay

These magnets are about an inch in diameter. They are pretty easy to make and only take a few colors.  The star and cloud look dirty and wonky if you seem them up close. You would think that a cloud and star would be the easiest to replicate. A star is surprisingly hard to make symmetric. And white clay is impossible to keep clean. Every fabric fiber in my apartment is drawn into the white clay by some annoying unexplainable force.  Lets see, you need:

• Polymer Clay: green, red, white, black, yellow, brown, beige

• Magnets: I buy ugly magnets from the dollar store them SMASH them with my meat hammer/tenderizer to get the magnets out. (note: do not attempt while hung over or you may smash your finger due to impaired reflexes... o_O).

• Glaze: I like the toxic Sculpy glaze for these. It is super thick and smells like murdering brain cells.

** also as a side note, why is centering these pictures so hard. I am giving up.. urg!

super mario polymer clay magnets.

Maybe I have one too many fridge magnets. ...

Veggie Magnets with Modeling Magic

Here are some veggie themed fridge magnets that I made out of Modeling Magic. Modeling Magic is a Crayola child/baby product that I buy a lot of. It comes in primary colors and mixes easy, just like plasticine and other clay-like products for children. The great thing about Modeling Magic, which separates it from the others, is that it is SO light. It air dries and weighs next to nothing. This is great for making magnets. They can actually support something besides their own weight.







And here is the second set:



To make these it is quite simple. Mix the colors together, shape the Modeling Magic into veggies and then let is dry. The longer the better. Then I glaze them (clear or shiny-clear glaze). Lastly I stick on a magnet with Super/Krazy...etc glue. I have ruined a few magnets by gluing them to my fingers and having to sacrifice them for finger freedom.