virendra

Some of the best times I have had is doing a craft project with one of my children. If you are looking for a joint project to do with your child here is a delightful one for 8 year olds and up.

This project, for most kid/parent combos will take a couple of days to complete and is fun for both of you. So, I am going to spend the next two days explaining how to make these darling figurines.

The materials you will need is a block of wood with a 14 inch hole bore in the center, a 14 inch dowel, some tape, some cotton batting, polymer clay, paint, material, thread, shears, and a sewing machine. Hot glue or other glue. 10 or 12 guage wire

With these materials you can create not just the little gnome and the witch but a vast area of figurines for any occassion. Santa’s angels, wizzard’s, whatever your imagination can come up with.

the first thing you want to do is make the head and hands from polymer clay. I free form mine but there are molds to make faces and hands. You can find many of them by doing a search on the net. Just type in polymer clay hand molds, or polymer clay face molds….and you should find a variety of places that you can purchase a mold from.

If you are making your own head and hands, you will need to just practice until you get one or two you like. For heads I usually form a slightly egg shaped shape, smooth it and then add the nose, chin, and eye sockets. I then take tiny pieces of clay to shape the eyeball and place it inside the eye socket.

For the hands and arms I roll pieces of clay into a cyclinder and then using a sharp scalpul, I shape the fingers.

you could form the hands while your child makes the face.

If you want to save painting time, use super sculpty as it comes already flesh colored. Once your face and hands are formed then place them in the oven at 275 degrees. fire them for 15 minutes per quarter inch of thickness. (Most of my heads need fired for about an hour).

While these are firing, you can start putting together the base for your figurine. Cut the dowel to the size you want. The gnome dowel is 8 inches long and the witch is approximately 20. Glue the dowel into the wooden base.

Cut the 12 guage wire about 18 inches long. Wrap it around the dowel about an inch from the top. The wire will make bendable arms for your figurine.

Now take the batting and cut two strips 4 inches wide and 8 inches long. Wrap the wire starting about an inch from the end all the way to the dowel. Use tape to hold the start of it to the wire, and another piece to secure the end when you are done wrapping.

Repeat with the other arm.

Now cut a piece of batting 13 inches by 24 inches. start wrapping the dowel about a 1/3 of the way up from the bottom. Make sure you criss cross the batting over the wire on the arms to make shoulders. Tape it so it does not unwrap.

You can use more batting to make a fuller body and arms.

Now cut your material to form the robes of dress. I usually take a piece of material measure it so it is a wee bit longer folded in half than the form of the body including the base. That way all I have to do is cut a neck hole and sew up the sides.

Next cut the sleeve length. attach the top of the sleeve to the top of the gown. Then starting with the sleeve end, sew working the base of the sleeve into the gown and continue to sew down the side of the gown. Repeat this on the other side.
Cut the neck hole.

By now, your clay head and arms should be done, remove them from the oven, let them cool and paint them.

You have done all the basic work and are now ready to assemble your figuine tomorrow.

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