Paper Pottery Bowl Tutorial Part 2

This is Part 2 of my Paper Pottery Bowl Tutorial, Click here for part 1.

What you will need for Part 2(in addition to the "part 1" stuff);

paint brushes

gesso*

acrylic paint*

Sand paper (optional)

Polycrylic*

(*You can purchase the brands I'm using through Amazon)

Alright, so if you've been following along, here's where we are after part 1;

The glue's all dry and we're ready to continue.

Give both the inside and outside of the bowl a thin coat of gesso (paint with the ridges on the paper-not against them). You don't absolutely need this step,
but the gesso does several things;
It primes the paper and glue for painting, fills in small gaps,
and give the bowls a texture that makes them look
and feel a littler more like pottery.

If you only used glue on the inside,
you'll notice the the gesso is cracking as it dries, as shown here.
If you used glue on the outside, it's probably cracking there too.
School glue is actually a great way to get an age/crackling effect which I sometimes use, but if that's not what you want-Good news!
That's why we're using gesso before painting.

Gesso is the stuff you use to prime glass for painting.
It can give just about anything a smooth canvas quality surface to paint on.
So if its not going on even, or in this case, cracking, 

wait for it to dry and then add a few more coats.
You can sand between coats too, if you want. 

Yeah, there are still a couple of tiny holes here,
but they should be small enough to fill in with paint.
(you're welcome to sand/add another coat to yours though)

The rest is all in the painting. (make sure the gesso is dry first)

Keeping it simple, I'm painting mine blue.

Start from the inside and work your way out. 

Remember to paint with the ridges.

 These are miniatures, so any fingerprints in the paint are really going to show. Paint the inside, wait for it to dry, and then do the outside. I could hold the larger bowl a little better, so more of it could be painted, but my fingers pretty much covered the outside of the smaller one.

The number of coats you'll need depends on whether or not it looks streaky when dry, but once you're happy with it,
you're done. One last step, seal them with Polycrylic.
It protects the paint, and gives the pottery a glossy glazed look.
(I recommend the Satin finish for miniatures)
These photos don't include the Polycrylic(all the pottery I post/sell is sealed though) because while working on this I had a neat idea. So before I seal mine...

...I'm going to paint in some tiny goldfish.

So there you have it.
You now know the basics of how to make paper pottery bowls,
just like I do.

^_^

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Looking for more Tutorials and other useful info?

Paper Pottery Bowl Tutorial Part 1

Paper Pottery Bowl Tutorial Part 2

Mini Wire Shelving Tutorial

------------

Wonderful Stuff - Polymer clay, Part 1 

Wonderful Stuff - Polymer clay, Part 2

Paper Pottery Bowl Tutorial Part 1

My family doesn't think I should be doing tutorials for things that I sell, but I dunno, you can teach someone to paint and still sell your paintings, right? And it's not like I'm giving away any trade secrets here. Heck, I can even link to two other bloggers that know how to do this. (1, 2) Anyone can make miniatures, but it's the style and skill of an artist that makes them unique collectibles. Besides, most of my paper pottery is one of a kind anyway.

If you know anything about paper quilling or paper beads, this shouldn't be too difficult, but for those that never tried it before, this tutorial will teach you the basics. Granted, I never really did either of those things, but I figured this out by just reading about them, so it can't be that hard to learn. Tiny fingers help...and practice...

Since I'm sort of going to be making this bowls right along with you, this tutorial is getting broken up into parts (it takes time for these to dry) .

What you will need for Part 1;

White school glue* 

paper

wax paper*

scissors/something to cut with

A skewer or small dowel

*You can purchase the brands I'm using through Amazon

+++++

**Extra Note; Someone on Pinterest has been sharing my tutorial with an attached comment saying to use wood glue. I don't recommend wood glue. It costs more, dries different, has a weird color to it, and it's a messier clean up. Fortunately, I ended up talking to Jennifer of JS Miniatures about this, and she informed me that part of the wood glue comment might be that people in the UK can't get Elmer's glue. So to quote Jennifer (Thank you, btw);

"Alternative to Elmers for the UK would be standard PVA or school type PVA"

So if you can't find Elmers in your country, try that.

+++++

I'm using some scrap printer paper here, it's pretty easy to work with, but I've used everything from paper bags to photo paper for these. Different paper has different results, it's fun to experiment. Little tip though: If this is your first time making these, don't use newsprint. It get's mushy and it's much easier learning how to do this using something that will hold it's shape without much work.

Unless you went out and bought quilling paper, you should cut your paper into thin, relatively even strips.

The right batch of strips here are roughly 1cm wide. In miniature, these are really wide. For this tutorial, I'll be working with the thinner batch on the left, but I'm also going to make a bowl out of the wider batch so you can see what happens. Thin strips = Small round bowl. Wide strips = tall steep-sided bowl/vase.

A standard sheet of printer paper is 11 in. long. I need more paper than that, so I glue strips together.

Wrap the paper once around the skewer, and then glue together the loop you just made.
It should be wrapped kind of tightly, but you also need to be able to carefully slide the coiled paper off of the skewer when you're done.

IMPORTANT: Don't glue the paper to the skewer. Glue the paper to itself. 

Another tip: Put a drop of glue onto your wax paper. When you finish "quilling", it's much easier to dip the end of the paper into glue, then it is to try and use a glue bottle while holding the coiled paper in place.

Now that you're done fiddling with the first gluing part, continue wrapping the rest of the paper around the skewer. Once you start, don't stop until you're done. Keep the tension as even as you can. Remember, if it's too loose, it's just going to unravel when you try sliding it off the skewer. And then you'll end up wrapping again, while everything's all gluey.

I broke my own rule here so I could take this photo, don't stop until you've wrapped all of the paper around the skewer. This is to show you that you should be making, well it's basically a flat disc of paper. If the strips of paper aren't, for the most part, aligned it's not going well and you might want to start over. I've never had that problem with printer paper though.

Are you at the end? Don't let go of the paper you just wrapped! Carefully dip the end of your last strip of paper into the glue I told you to leave out, then press down and hold the end of the paper to the coil until you're sure it's not going to pop apart. Might take a minute or two. You don't need much glue for this part.

Now that everything's wrapped and dry, carefully slide your coiled paper disc off of the skewer. 

Is it stuck? Try twisting the disc. Turn it in the direction that will make the coil tighter. You don't want to loosen the coils, your disc could unravel.

You should end up with a disc that has a tiny hole in the center. You glued the beginning and end, so it should stay together.

Evenly push out the center of the disc. I usually use both of my thumbs to do this part, but again, I had to take a picture. If your fingers aren't small enough for the bowl you're making-dowels, toothpicks, Q-tips anything will work. It's just easier to shape things with your own hands when possible.

IMPORTANT: Remember how wide those strips of paper are. They need to be overlapping. If you push the center out too far it's going to unravel.

If you're having trouble making the bowl symmetrical, 

flip it upside down on the table and squish it into the right shape.

Ta-da! A paper bowl...No, we're not done, but it's looking pretty good.

This is the inside,

This is the inside + glue. I used to fill the whole bowl, but you don't need to do that because...

...You can save on dry times, and glue, by spreading it around. Once dry, 

the coils are locked in place-no more worries about unraveling. 

Depending on the paper you're using, you might want to also glue the outside.

When you're all done, set it on the wax paper (some of the glue is going to leak out the bottom over time), and put it somewhere safe while it dries.

Remember those wide paper strips I showed you at the beginning? 
I used those and made the bowl on the left. 
See what I mean about "Wide strips = tall steep-sided bowl/vase"?
Thin strips for bowls people, thin strips...

Congratulations, we are now at the end of Part 1. Now we wait for our bowls (and my weird vase) to dry. 

>>Part 2<<

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Looking for more Tutorials and other useful info?

Paper Pottery Bowl Tutorial Part 1
  
Paper Pottery Bowl Tutorial Part 2

Mini Wire Shelving Tutorial

------------

Wonderful Stuff - Polymer clay, Part 1 

Wonderful Stuff - Polymer clay, Part 2

 

 

Undersized Urbanite - The Eclectic Tile Floor- WIP

This was both a great idea and a terrible idea. Alright, so maybe not 'terrible', but I'm really cutting it too close to the deadline to start a project like this. And yet, I did.

You may recall my dilemma with the carpet for the kitchen/living-room. Well I decided to move the carpet up to the bedroom floor (it needed a carpet, why not that one?), and just extend the tile portion to cover that whole space. Which made it time to actually start on, the now 2x sized, tile floor. And of course, I had to make it one of the most intricate parts of the house.

Step 1, roll out and bake various colors of polymer clay ;

Step 2, Start cutting up the clay into tiles.

Step 3, Have fun with the translucent tiles by gluing cute pen doodles to the backs of the them.

And yes, that batch on the left does say, "KYLE", (twice). I'm putting my name on(in) this floor!

Step 4, Start gluing the tiles into place on a graph paper template, in an 'organized chaos' manner.

Step 5, Remember that the fireplace in this room has a black tile back-splash made out of corrugated paper that needs to kind of match, so add some of that in too.

Step 6, Decide not to be wasteful and start to gather up all of the clay scraps to make into more tiles after you run out of, 'the good pieces'.

Step 7, Make those tiles.

Step 8, After you run out of baked clay, Take a photo to show all of your blog readers how much you underestimated the size of this floor you're making.

White squares = I need to go bake some more clay. :)

The plan was to paint stuff this week, but I wasn't really in the mood for it and for some reason I like the mind-numbing task of mosaic work. So there you go.

 Will I get this house done on time? Stay Tuned!

Wonderful Stuff - Polymer clay, Part 2

>>>>> Click Here To Read Part 1 <<<<<

Welcome to - Polymer Clay, Part 2

After digging through all of my past files and posts online, I present to you examples of my past work, featuring polymer clay;

You can sculpt figures with it.  Just 15min. in an oven for each piece to cure.

Berries and globs of sherbet for mini Halloween punch. Plus a serving spoon so the 'host' can dish it out.

Indoor mosaic work. 

Dinner Rolls, Candles(fake ones), & tiny gingerbread houses.

Super tiny chocolates.

mini clay bowls by ~Listener-Liserian on deviantART
mini box by ~Listener-Liserian on deviantART
 (If you're wondering about the weird screen-name, It's an old account)

Bowls and boxes, if you're super patient about sculpting...Like I was that week...




Strawberry Charm Pendants by ~Kyle-Lefort on deviantART

Charms!,

 


Black and Blue Clay Cabochon by ~Kyle-Lefort on deviantART
Tree Silhoutte Cabochon by ~Kyle-Lefort on deviantART
 
(Sold, but the others are still available).


The Steampunk Gear by ~Kyle-Lefort on deviantART

Handmade cabochons, and many other jewelry pieces.

---

Of course, there are plenty of other things you can do with polymer clay. I'm just one person with a knack for working small. Hopefully, my work has inspired you (just a little?...maybe?), and now you know a little more about what I use to make it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Looking for more Tutorials and other useful info?

Paper Pottery Bowl Tutorial Part 1

Paper Pottery Bowl Tutorial Part 2

Mini Wire Shelving Tutorial

------------

Wonderful Stuff - Polymer clay, Part 1 

Wonderful Stuff - Polymer clay, Part 2

Undersized Urbanite-The "Unfinished" Basement

First I'd like to catch you up on what's been going on since my last post;

I was briefly recruited to help finish a life sized redecorating project. It was planned for Wed. afternoon, but then it was moved to Thurs, the day I planned to write up, "Polymer clay, Part 2" (part 1 is here), and then still had to be finished on Sat. To make things more fun, my task was holding a decorative border up above my head until it was properly pasted to a wall, and then moving around furniture just enough to aggravate and old sports injury in my shoulder (I will never forget swim team). Add that to the awful coughing that started somewhere during that time-frame and you have all of my excuses as to why 'Part 2' has yet to exist. Aside from the cough, all is back to normal , so I'm hoping to get back on track this week.

-----

Also falling behind on the Undersized Urbanite project, I spent most of Sunday working on that. Determined to make up for my busted blogging schedule by having something finished to show you, I focused the basement. I still needed to add the mortar to a side wall, which I did, and then I made the floor;

Left over egg carton scraps glued to a floor template to looks like packed stone. After this I painted it to fill in all of the white showing through the gaps (note self-paint template first next time).

Then I made the ceiling;

Basically the same thing, except that it's strips of balsa wood and Popsicle sticks this time.Gave it a few brown wash coats to make it look like aged wood after all of the glue dried.

Lined the room with doubled sided tape;

And finally slid all of the pieces into place;

It needs more tape and some touch ups, but I think I can cross this room off of my list.

The original plan involved a washer/dryer, but that was before I decided to go with the Steampunk theme. So the new plan is either storage, or, as my clever little brother (who will not openly admit to liking the dollhouse) suggested,  I can set up the room to look like the tiny residents are in the middle of trying to remodel their unfinished basement. That decision is going to come down to how much time I have after I put the rest of the house together. For the record, with basement in place, it currently looks like this;

The exterior pieces are almost done, started on the roof(but not the chimneys yet), and the main floor should be read to go soon. The plan for the second floor is a bedroom, while the the top floor gets to be a library/observatory-because that just seems like something my tiny fictitious Steampunks would have in their house.

It's far from done, but I like how it seems to be turning out.
 

Mini Wire Shelving Tutorial

Almost immediately after posting my progress on my miniature fridge, I got a request from one of my readers to explain how I made the shelving inside-Which means that it's time for a tutorial;

Aluminum wire shelving.

Making the fridge itself is a little complicated (and still in progress), but the shelving is pretty easy to put together as long as you have the right materials and a little patience (there is a good chunk of drying time involved).


I measured everything out ahead of time and drew up a paper version of the fridge, including a template for the shelving. I'm not specifying exact sizes because the shelves were just "eye-balled" for size based on the template I made up for this specific project.

Template's just a rectangle, pretty simple (labeled so it doesn't accidentally get thrown out, or something).

Once I got the main part of the fridge put together, it was time to actually start on the shelving.

(it's still drying here)

First, I checked to make sure that my template would still fit inside because copy paper and basswood do not have the same thicknesses (turned out that it needed to be trimmed a little).

Next, wire and wire tools;

I used 20 gauge aluminum wire. If you have other types of wire, they might work with your project. Just remember, for realism, these shelves should look like they can hold a fridge worth of groceries.

The tools you see are jewelry wire clippers (also called, "Nippers"?) and jewelry pliers. You just need something that works to cut and straighten out the wire.

What to do;

Start with the outline of the shelves, use the paper template as a guide to cut each piece of wire to the correct length. When put together on the template, the pieces of wire should  just touch each other at the corners.

"Gluing" the pieces together;

Because making miniatures involves a little trial and error, I use water soluble glues ("school glue"), so I can still pull things apart if I need too. That's not going to work out too well with aluminum though, so instead I used Polycrylic.

(Clear Satin, because I think glossy makes most miniatures look weird)

You will also need wax paper and either a paint brush or Q-tips for this next part-I recommend Q-tips (because Polycrylic has wrecked a couple of my brushes). The wax paper is a must though, dry Polycrylic will peel off of it, and that's pretty important here.

Polycrylic is actually a sealer (similar to Polyurethane-without the yellowing), but it worked really well as an adhesive for this project.

 What to do;

Set the template down on your workspace and lay some wax paper over top of it. Take the wires that you just cut, and using the template (you can see it through the wax paper), arrange them on top of the wax paper. Then use a Q-tip(or brush) and drip some Polycrylic onto the corners of your shelf frames. It needs to completely cover both wires (just at the corners though), right down to the wax paper. Don't worry about extra drips or puddles around the wire. It can be trimmed off (exacto knife or even just scissors) once the Polycrylic has set completely.

If you are making 3 shelves at once, like I did: Tape your template down and use separate pieces of wax paper for each shelf. That way you can make a shelf, slide it off of the template (as shown, above), and out of the way, letting you continue on with the next one.

This is the waiting part: Polycrylic takes around 2 hours to dry, but up to 12 hours to set at full strength. You won't need full strength to keep working on the shelves, but if the Polycrylic would rather stretch instead of peel apart from your wax paper-It needs more time. Don't worry though, if at any point you accidentally pull something apart, just put it back together, re-"glue".

After you peel them from the wax paper and trim off the Polycrylic drips, Check to make sure that each of your new shelf frames still fit inside the fridge (or whatever you decide to make these shelves for, really). If  they don't, Cut (or just pull) one of the wires apart from the other 3 (you shouldn't have to completely redo the gluing part), trim down which ever wires are too long, and then re-glue the wire back in place.

Repeat;

Once you have the frames done, the rest is really just repeating the process a couple more times.

The frame is layer #1. The inside of my shelving is 6 evenly spaced bars(layer #2. the ends of these wires go underneath the frame), and one long bar running across the center(layer #3, goes underneath #2). The frame was the important, "structure", part. The other sections of wire just need to look good, so you can deviate a little from that part of my design, if something works better for you.

Ta-da! You're done, Enjoy your tiny wire shelves.

Other tips;

You can keep reusing the wax paper as long as you don't put Polycrylic in the same spot twice (you can easily see where it was).

If you're having trouble keeping the shelves lying flat while drying, use tape(avoid putting it directly on the wet Polycrylic).

(It should still be on wax paper, drying, when you do this)

 How did I get the shelves to sit in my fridge like that?

Just cut the pointed ends off of some toothpicks, glue them to the sides of the fridge(evenly spaced), 

And you have shelf runners!

Materials List;

If you're having trouble finding these things in stores, or you'd rather just buy them online-I've looked everything up and provided links to products on Amazon. When possible, I linked to the specific items that I have used, and would recommend. If I couldn't find what I was looking for, or it really doesn't matter what brand you use for this project (is anyone picky about their Q-tips?), links will lead to a general list of things, to help you find what works for you.

aluminum wire
jewelry wire clippers
jewelry pliers
Polycrylic, 1/2 Pint, Clear Satin
wax paper
Q-tips

 (Just a heads up. Regardless of where you get this stuff, if you buy anything on this list to make these shelves, you will probably have tons of left over materials. I use this stuff all the time but even a 1/2 pint of Polycrylic can last for months. Save what's left and use it for your next miniature project)

I hope this tutorial clears thing up, if there's something that needs further explaining-let me know (I'm kind of new at this tutorial thing)

And if I've somehow inspired you to make something because of this post, let me know, I'd love to see it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Looking for more Tutorials and other useful info?

Paper Pottery Bowl Tutorial Part 1

Paper Pottery Bowl Tutorial Part 2

Mini Wire Shelving Tutorial

------------

Wonderful Stuff - Polymer clay, Part 1 

Wonderful Stuff - Polymer clay, Part 2