I thought my friends and I weren’t doing gifts this year…but one friend is dying for all of us to make goofy crafty things to give to each other. So all of us have to make 4 small gifts, supposed to be silly. But I don’t have much money…but thought it would be fun to make and bake some goofy clay figurines or ornaments.
But IIRC, that colorful modeling clay really is not cheap, and I’m gonna want a decent amount of colors too. And I suck at painting so getting model magic or something AND paint won’t be cheap or easy for me either.
I vaguely remember people making clay as kids. I did a quick google and saw some recipes. But I know a lot of Dopers have kids so someone must know a good recipe for making clay. I’d like to be able to use food coloring and if there is a homemade clay recipe that I can bake in the oven to harden it would be perfect. I don’t really have the money to try all the recipes out there and have them suck. If anyone has any advice in this area I would really appreciate it.
Do you mean like cornstarch clay? I made some for my kids once.
I just used the recipe that was on the cornstarch box. IIRC it involved heating cornstarch, salt and water, but I don’t remember the proportions. I see all sorts of recipes on the net, if this is what you are looking for.
You let it sit out all night and it hardens. Or you can put it in the oven.
I’m kind of looking for specific experience/recipes so I don’t waste time and money trying them all out. I want a recipe that will either nicely harden when I want it to or that I can bake (and how do I bake it?)
You can make paper clay. It is somewhat time intensive and messy but it’s fun. Keep in mind though that the texture can be somewhat lumpy but there are methods you can use to smooth it out or make a less lumpy top coat using finer paper, like tissue.
I love this site for papier mache.. There are recipes for PM mixtures and all sorts of tutorials and advice. Take a look at some of the galleries and you will be amazed at what people can do with it. PM also has the benefit of being good for the environment (you’re recycling paper) and it’s lightweight.
My mother made clay out of stale bread. She’d paint the figures she made, but you could also probably dye the clay itself. It airs dry and makes fairly resilient sculptures. They have just enough give that they don’t tend to break easily.
It’s a very smooth, nice medium to work with. We used to make tiny rose bouquets out of it.