Bacchus Shrine (image hvy as usual)

[amaryllisroze]

This is my latest...its about 5 inches or so tall...made from one of the awesome unfinished wood "dollhouse wardrobes" you can get at Michael's for $0.99.

The leaves, etc are made from Makin's air dry clay then painted...

The pic in the back is just printed on regular paper then pasted in.

Front View:



Top View:



Detail of inside:

[Nocturnaloner]

Now, I could be biased, but I think that friggin' rules. 

[Luxe]

That.  Is.  Beautiful!!!  We love our wine around here.  Did you have a mold for the face?  I think that is so artistically splendid!  Damn.  Want one a those!
How long did it take to make the leaves?  WOW!  Overall visually juicy!

[amaryllisroze]

The face is a polymer clay push mold...there are about dozen different faces on it. All very serene.

The leaves took quite a bit of time. I found some plastic scrapbook embellishments and like the shape but not the colors...so I used Miracle Mold and made a mold of them and got to work making tiny leaves out of the Makin's and then painted them much more to my liking...the same with the dragonflies, acorns & grapes.

I worked on it off and on for about 2 weeks...but never for more than about 20 minutes at a time...there was a lot of drying time involved.

I would say if I had to pin a number on it, all combind, maybe 2 or 3 hours.

[honorhappy]

Very pretty.  I love it, and I love the overall ideas as well.  Where do you have it?

[Luxe]

2 to 3 hours is phenomenal!  Talent!  Did you think about it and plan it beforehand?

[amaryllisroze]

Thanks for all the compliments! You guys are great!

Right now its sitting on the mantel over the fireplace in our living room.

I didn't plan too much...it just kind of created itself as I put it together. I made the face first...not for anything in particular...then the leaves and they came together naturally...then it just kind of
created itself from there.

I'm not positive on the time it took...like I said, it was in chunks of time over a couple of weeks (I'm
not counting drying time at all)...sometimes it was 5 minutes in a day, sometimes as much as 20-ish...

It really isn't as complicated as it looks...

[Diane B.]

That is wonderful!!  I'd love to include a link to it from my online polymer clay encyclopedia if you have it anywhere permanent (let me know if you do!)

P.S.  Is there any reason you chose to use an air dry clay instead of polymer clay for the leaves and things??


Diane B.
GlassAttic ...polymer clay "encyclopedia"
http://glassattic.com/polymer/contents.htm

[amaryllisroze]

Diane,

Wowza! That would be awesome! I think I can talk my husband into let me have a bit of room on his site, so I'll let you know when that happens. Wow...thank you!

I really bought a package of Makin's on a whim and ended up really liking the texture. It dries to an almost porcelain-like feel. It holds detail really nicely, as well. The only negative thing I can really say about it is that I bought a big pack of it and the texture of it is just awful. It sticks to everything. I'm not sure if its just a fluke or if its because the first pack I got was "white" and the big pack was "natural". Maybe the difference in color changes its texture? I bought another small pack of the white and it was the same as the first batch. Who knows...

I've done a little bit with polymers before and for me, they tend to get very soft and a bit hard for me to control on little tiny items. I don't have anything against the polymers...once upon a really long time ago I made a really cool switch plate cover with it.

Again, thank you for the compliments!
Amy

[Diane B.]

Amy, be sure and let me know by e-mail also when you get a photo up somewhere in case I miss this thread (you can always find my e-mail address at my website... home page).

As for the Makins Clay, your experience wasn't a fluke... the larger packages just don't have the same quality of "clay" as the smaller ones 

If you're finding polymer clay too soft, I'm wondering if you're using one of the soft brands of polymer clay because many miniaturists use FimoClassic with no problem at all.  If you're now using Sculpey III, or Premo, or FimoSoft, while having the problem with detail (and especially if you have warm hands or live in a warm environment), then you should definitely try FimoClassic or Kato Polyclay... I think you'll find a lot of difference. 
There's a lot of info about the working characteristics of the different brands and lines of polymer clay on this page if you want many more details:
http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/Characteristics.htm

Especially if you're using Premo or SuperSculpey (or perhaps if you just happen to have gotten some extremely fresh bars of the other brands) and you're finding the clay too soft, you can also "leach" it to firm it up by removing some of the plasticizer (or just let it sit for a few months on a shelf to "advance" it).  Just cooling the clay in various ways can help a lot too.   If you're not already familiar with leaching clay and cooling it, check out this page for more info:
http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/Conditioning.htm
(... click on "Leaching"...)

P.S.  Here are a few other pages at my site you might want to check out which have similar techniques, etc., to what you did:
http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/molds.htm
http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/onlay.htm
http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/heads_masks.htm (> faces from "Molds")
http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/powders_metallicwaxes.htm

Keep up the good work!!!!!