“A year ago I never would have thought that a blog community would become so special to me.” ~Marsha
In our house every Friday night is Pizza Night. It has been for close to ten years now. I’ve tried to make something else on the occasional Friday, only to hear very loud protesting from the kids.
Now you may be thinking, Pizza every Friday? Isn’t that a little boring?… predictable?… unhealthy?
Well it isn’t really all that bad. I make my pizza from scratch. The dough is made in the bread maker. The sauce I often make from fresh tomatoes and herbs. The pizza is covered in lots of fresh toppings and not too much cheese. A thing of love really. Enjoyable for all of us.
So why talk about our family’s tradition of eating pizza on a Friday? I don’t know… Just saw a picture of the little miniature polymer clay pizza I made as Barbie play food for my niece, and thought you all may enjoy this tidbit of info about my personal life.
Nothing like sharing your passions and traditions with your friends. I feel like you all are becoming a great group of friends. Gathered in one place to share your love of doing something creative with your hands. Making beads, making friends… Pizza anyone?
For years we had hamburgs every Saturday night. I made the hamburg patties and had fresh buns. During that time, popcorn was Friday night’s snack.
As long as everybody likes something the same night each week, why not?
Remember now, there is quite a distinction between boring, predictable and tradition. I would love to start a pizza night, though it will have to be mini’s for just the two of us. Loved having a look into your non-poly life. Take care, Susan.
I sent a question off to Cindy about something that has been nagging my (little) brain. She wrote back to tell me that she was on vacation and asked me to ask the group here.
So – as a newbie clayer I haven’t as yet tried this and am wondering how it is done.
If you are going to use a bead that didn’t work out as a base for a new bead – how do you pierce the bead with a soft covering over a hard base?
btw – Cindy did promise to tell me if my question isn’t answered (once she returns from holidays) Perhaps there are multiple ways of going about it?
to aims
First question is you first bead already pierced?
if YES?.You cover with the new clay not forgetting to put sa tiny bit of liguid clay on the first bead. You add your second layer of clay. You can touch and feel and repair after if your hole is not good on the first try. Then you cure!
If NO? you will have to make the holes after curing and it will be alright.
It is always posssible to cover a paper bead or a wood bead. You just need to put glue on it first to seal it.
That is a very cool tradition Cindy. We have a weird one. One Thanksgiving I only had my four youngest kids in town (yes, I have 8 total) and my husband was also out of town. With no other family around I asked my kids if they wanted me to fix a full turkey dinner with fixins. They said no, they wanted Chicken Cheese Enchiladas (a family favorite). So that is what we had. So ever since, I have to make that, even if we are also having the whole turkey dinner shebang.
I also love our clay people community. Maybe someday we can have a claying retreat somewhere and all gather and meet in person.
aims@ You might have to drill a hole with a dremel or something in the bead once you have cured it.
I grew up with Sunday dinner after church was roast beef, potatoes and carrots. We all loved it. My mom, especially, since it cooked while we were away. I tried to keep that tradition with my family but my kids didn’t like roast beef! Go figure that. They were very “vegetarians” when they were little and getting them to eat meat was quite challenging.
My grandma is very artistic and for my brother’s birthday one year she made a cookie that looked like a pizza. My grandparents didn’t eat pizza so she had to guess how a pizza was made. It looked great and I’ll always remember it.
Cindy, you beat me to it! I love to make clay miniatures and I wanted to make a pizza. Yours looks delicious!!
Laurel, I’m with you! We should get together and “clay” in person!!
We usually have fish and chips (oven baked and served with veggies) on Fridays (how English!)
It’s mostly because Michael’s parents do, and when he moved in with me I figured, why not carry on?
When I lived with my parents we always had the traditional Sunday roast lunch (except we call it “dinner”) – some kind of roast joint or chicken (or very occasionally sausages), potatoes, vegetables, stuffing, Yorkshire pudding and gravy, followed by something like apple crumble and custard. The kind of hearty stodgy English meal that means you have to sit in front of the TV all afternoon to recover! Since it’s just two of us here I tend not to bother now, it’s too much trouble unless you’re cooking for four or more.
The one tradition we’ve kept up even after I moved out is hot turkey sandwiches on Christmas Eve. Mum got tired of getting up really early on Christmas Day and missing all the present-opening to deal with the turkey, so one year when I was a kid she decided to cook the turkey on Christmas Eve instead, and we’d eat it cold the next day.
When the turkey came out of the oven my dad couldn’t resist making himself a sandwich with the leg meat, and once my mum stopped shouting at him for ruining the turkey she decided it was a great idea and a Christmas tradition was born. ;) Except for my brother who’s vegetarian, he has hot quorn roast sandwiches!
We do pizza on Friday night, too. Store bought, tho. Works for me. However, every Saturday night I make catfish and cornbread and two other side dishes. Just wouldn’t be a Saturday without our cat fish dinner!
To Aims,is your bead made of polymer clay? I am talking about the hard bead, and what is the soft covering made of? Do you have a drill with bits from small and up? Cindy (traditions) well all I can say about this is,I do not have any. My husband was U.S. Air Force and worked on the Aircraft(an Aircraft Mechanic)that flies the skies and dog fights, and goes to war when needed. He made sure the Aircraft was mission ready and safe for the pilots to do their duties. So time was what you made of it when you had it. TDY’s was frequent and at a moments notice. I had to carry a heavy load while he served his country. I even was in a forgein country with a three week old baby (my First) and a TYPHOON, it was in the Philippians at Clark Air Base. I was where ever he was as long as I was allowed to be there. I am not whining. I was proud to be a Military Wife. As any women that has been or still is a military wife, knows it takes a special kind of women to be a Military Wife. And I am patting myself on the back,I grew as a person and made him proud I could handle whatever came up or I knew where to go get help. Sorry to carry on so but just wanted everyone to know something about me. Thanks for listening. Lynn W.(He is retired now)
How wonderful to hear about your families’ traditions! Nice to hear I’m not the only one to eat a certain food on a certain night! LOL
@aims: To answer your question about piercing a hole in a bead that you have remade by covering a baked bead with new clay you can do it two different ways.
1)You can drill it by hand with a drill bit after it is baked. Click the link by my name to see a neat way to make your own drilling tool.
2) Put your bead wire through the baked bead before covering it. You may need to slide the pin back from one hole to smooth it, then push it through and do the other end the same way.
Other then that it can be tricky to guess where the hole is. Hope that makes sense and helps!
The ‘Polymer Clay Bead Making for Beginners Course’ was very informative. Although I have dabbled with polymer clay in the past, the above mentioned, is very good for beginners wanting to learn how to work with and utilize this excellent form of clay.
NEW PHOTOS ADDED:
Hello to Everyone,
Some new Spotlight project pictures that relate to the topic of this page (Polymer Clay Doll Miniatures), have just been added in another post. They were submitted by Catalina. The link by my name will take you to where you can see them, along with a bit of a write up about her other pics.
Hello, this is my first post here. I am new to polymer clay and my interest isn’t in beads and jewelry, but in 1/6 (Barbie) size miniature food. I am trying to find a web site that might include some how to instructions, since any technique (which is pretty much zero) I have is just something I made up. It would be nice to see how other people do it. I thought maybe someone here might know of a site or a really good book to help me. Any help I can get would be greatly appreciated. If you want to see the few dishes I have done so far, they can be seen in my Flickr account here:
flickr.com/photos/24020302@N05/sets/72157625265458461/
@Marna: An interesting site is theminifoodblog.blogspot.com which has posts for the miniature food. It is mostly 1/2th, but I’m sure you could adapt the scale. Hope you enjoy it.
@Jodee:
Thank you, I recognize some people’s work.
@Marna: I think your work is very good. It looks like you have achieved a lot already. How did you make the little pads of butter look so real?
@Catalina: Thank you, I still have a lot of room for improvement though. I made the pats of butter out of Delight modeling compound & painted them pale yellow. To make the “melting” part, I used Envirotex Lite that had a little yellow coloring in it & poured it over the pats of butter.
I would like to make a miniature version, (1:16 scale), of a vintage, white, porcelain globe light fixture, of the type that was commonly used on municipal buildings, such as city halls, court houses, schools, libraries, etc. I thought this might be possible using a polymer clay that I could mold to the appropriate shape, hollow it out and bake it. After baking, I would insert a small LED light. The material I make the globe out of would need to transmit the light from the LED and I would like the exterior surface of the material to be glossy or shiny like white porcelain appears. Would something like Cernit White, Translucent Polymer Clay work or would you recommend something completely different? Thank you for your assistance.
Hi Rory, Yes that is definitely something you could make with polymer clay. Cernit White Translucent should do the job quite nicely! If you found it wasn’t quite white enough you could mix a touch of some solid white to it. Or if you had access to the Cernit Opaline in White that might be a good option as well.
Of course the same would go for Premo White Translucent, Fimo Translucent or Kato Polyclay Translucent clays. Careful not to get the Regular Premo Translucent or Sculpey III Translucent because they have quite a Yellow tint to them. In fact stay away from any SculpeyIII since it is a very brittle clay.
Hope that helps!
Thank you for responding. I appreciate your videos and your advice. God bless.