Polymer Clay Icing for Donuts!

 (edit: if the text formatting it wonky near the bottom then blogger must of exploded on me. I tried to fix it with no solutions)

Hey there! Another week has passed so that means a new posting. Before I go into it you will notice that I changed the design of my blog! This super pink design is to celebrate the cherry blossoms and the coming of spring! I decided to "simplify" my graphic design style and do something more simple and clean. I loved how it turned out so I hope you all enjoy it to!

I want to show you my experiments with donut icing. I don't make donuts often or often enough, but I know there are several way to make icing for donuts. I'm a perfectionist so I always want my clay food to look as real as possible. I want to achieve that icing that's smooth, thin and well, perfect haha. I never went through all the ways I knew how so when I was looking at all my naked donuts I thought "This is my chance!".

The three donuts that you see are the three ways that I did it. I wanted to find a sure fire way that I can make that donut icing perfect all the time. That and just expand the ways I can make icings and glazes.

Before I go to the method that obviously worked I want to talk about the other two. The first method that I tried is what I normally use. I took a bit of some already made white icing made from white polymer clay and TLS. I revived its "icing" texture again since it was like a super soft clay texture from not being used and being dried out. From there I used a brown chalk pastel to color it, I didn't want to thicken it up again so I didn't use brown clay to colorized it. I used a small knife to shave as much pastel as I wanted in the clay then mixed it up. After the color was completely mixed in, I got a tooth pick to start laying down the icing on the donut. By the time the whole donut was covered with the icing I noticed that the icing was too "stiff" and I added more TLS to thin it out. It was easier to try to smooth over but again the icing was too stiff. So I did what I could to make it look nice and called it a day haha. Needless to say unless you like the "cake look" icing on your donuts I would skip this method for donut icing.

The second method was a really out there one that I wanted to try for about a year. This is more of a chocolate "glaze" look rather then an "icing". I took some Liquitex Gel Medium and added the same chalk pastel to it. I mixed it in really well since it got a little lumpy. After I mixed it all in I put the gel on top of the donut and try to smooth it out with a tooth pick the best I can. The end result when it dried was pretty good! It wasn't the perfect icing look that I wanted but I love how nice of a glace it turned out. Doing this specific experiment have open my eyes to the gel medium!

The last and best way to make donut icing is the same method I explained in the first process. But instead of using old icing clay, I used all TLS with "maybe" a tiny bit of clay to thicken it up. I just got some TLS and added the pastel. Then I mixed both up till I had the shade I wanted. Then I used a tooth pick to lay it on. I spread it around to all the areas till I had it the way I wanted. Since this was my second technique at the icing, I had the unbaked donut sitting around. So I the icing dipped down more while I was working on the other methods. So my tip here is once you get the icing the way you want it throw it in the oven asap! Or the icing will pour down onto the surface of whatever you got it on.

Overall, I learned a lot from this experiment and I'll definitely will be using my last method to sweeten up my donuts every time. I hope this was useful to all of you as well.

Before I go I want to give you all a sneak peak at some new rings that will be on sale soon. I like to call them "Yummy Rings" haha. I used some unused waffles and other clay pieces and made them into rings!

I hope you all enjoyed this post, take care!

When Your Princess is in Another Castle

How to feel good in time of stress or depression

Its hard to feel good when your seriously down on your luck. I've just had a rough patch myself yesterday and it sucked. I didn't have any energy in my body and I couldn't muster up much creative energy either. Everything just blew monkey butt and I felt sucked dry. All my magic inside me that I had just disappeared and I was left immobile.

I think back on how my emotions can get the better of me and how I make myself feel better. Its really hard because when I'm so down on myself I can't hear any positive things. It just rolls off me like water off a ducks back, when I'm usually very receptive to it. I really have to get there on my own. And even then its a struggle to feel from anger to hopeful. Its such a huge jump I end up falling on my face more then I want to, which adds insult to injury.

"I want to feel good!, I don't care if my surrounding sucks, I just want to feel good!" Is all that I could think to myself yesterday. It was really hard because I did feel trapped because of my emotions. I just felt like there was no way out because I felt so bad when I'm usually not a gloomy person. I can see my way out of things and my life getting better, so when I feel like crap and trapped, I feel like a completely different person. At the same time my wanting to feel good lead me to different ways to make myself feel better. 

Depending on how bad I feel, I use different techniques to help me. The one being my favorite is distracting myself and forgetting what's bothering me. Even though its better said then done at times, it really helps me to feel better at an even pace. Rather then trying to jump from one extreme emotion to the next like "powerlessness" to "happy with everything". Instead, its good to get a step up from powerlessness, to "I know I can do this" or "things isn't that bad, everything happens for a reason". Just anything to lessen the pain little by little.

Some of the activities I do to distract myself include:

• Playing video games: Usually mindless games or something I have to focus on.
• Watching anime: Watching someone else's life can give me that lift I need.
• Collecting cute pictures: One of my favorite things to do really, I can never feel bad when looking at cute, girly images on the internet.
• Make a custom wallpapers for myself: I love doing this because it gives me that  creative thing to do and that positive focus.
• Reading manga: Depending on my mood, it can really serve me and inspire me to draw or look at the better things in life that's happening now.
• Playing with my pets: I swear petting your beloved cat or guinea pig melts away the harsh feeling you my have. There should be a prescription for it in drug stores.
•  Taking a nap: One of my favorite things to do because it give me a chance to start over. I tell myself "When I wake up things will be different" and when I wake up I feel better and more suited to have my spirits lifted.
• Full on ranting: This should be done when your on the bottom of the emotional totem pole. Just that something to get that initial anger and resentment out.  

All of these activities are great when you're feeling blue or whatever the case may be. The best part of all of them is that it distracts you from what is annoying you. It gives you a chance to let that emotion go and focus your energy on to other things. Freeing your mind of mental poisons that can really effect you if you dwell on the bad for too long. All of us have things worth getting mad about or just feel "this isn't right" but when those things start taking control of us, we need to step up.

Its up to us to feel what we want to feel rather then let our surroundings decide for us. It might seem strange to do but ignoring common things that get under your skin is a sure fire way of easing them from your life. Even though they very well might be there, you won't react to them making those annoyances invisible to you. Even better when you can find the good in those annoyances, it could make them not as bad as once thought. :)

Everyone deserves to feel good so if your not, don't beat yourself up. Take it one step at a time and get to know that happiness is our natural way. Happiness is always going to be there no matter what's around us. We just have to get up on our paths again and remember how great each and everyone of us are. :)

Thanks for reading, take care!

5 Ways to jump start your sweets deco and crafts for 2011!

How to jump start your sweets deco and crafts for 2011!

Hey all! Its a new year and that only means another year full of crafting! I know 2010 was a shaky year for my sweets deco because of life in general but I got back on track. My skills are getting better and I can't wait to improve them in this new year. If your deco year was less then desirable never worry because each day is a new day, a better opportunity to kick start those creative juices!

1. Get inspired!

It might be better said then done but it the best way to get the drive and kick in the butt! Go to your favorite deco den site, start listing small goals or even take some clay and start playing with it in your hands. Anything that can give you that  fire back! When I got in my bad hiatus, being inspired was hard to come by, or more just the "drive" to do it. When I looked in my drawer to see my paper clays had harden into a clay rocks it really got me down. Only when I took some action and decide to revive my clay rocks into beautiful piles of usable clay was when the fire got back into my belly. It was like I was reborn again and ready to pick up where I left off!

2. Make some sweets deco space!

So your inspired and ready to go right into deco but your room says different. Clean that sucker up! Just enough that you can make something and still have some clay and main tools around at your disposal. My room is the only place I have to make any sweets deco (besides the share kitchen that I use to work with silicone). I only have one table and that table have one spot I can work on, and I use that one spot for drawing as well. I have a lot of junk and stuff on the table so when I wanted to work with my deco, the thought of my table turned my stomach. It was way too much of a pain because I always have my drawing supplies and tons of papers around. I changed this around by doing simple things so I can work on small projects. I cleaned up the papers, moved my drawing stuff, cleaned my table and just got enough deco materials to make macaroons. It helped a ton because I was able to do my craft again but not stress myself out at the same time.

3. Start small!

Are you an over achiever? Do you like to make a dozen cup cake charms but find yourself burned out afterwards or even procrastinating future projects, start small! One of my biggest problems especially in the beginning was "I was doing way too much". I would want to start whole collections of three different things. By the time the second or third day came around of making charms, I would want to work on something else or be completely uninspired. Mix it up a bit and try small different things that won't take a life time to complete. You'll find that you will get much more done and you will be happy at the skill that you will farther develop!

4. Make personal projects!

The very thing that had me addicted to sweets deco again was making the cutest and very first bag charm. I wasn't worrying about if people will like it because it was mine. I didn't even care if it looked good or not because it was mine. It made me really open my mind to the inspiration I needed to come up with something I loved. Without the noises in my head telling me to go this way or that way, I was able to get in tune with myself and my creatively. No matter what you want to do with your sweets deco like selling or even making a gift for friends, always give time to make something for yourself. You won't believe the untapped resource that will come of it. 

5. Try something new

This ties in very will with getting inspired. When your inspired it feels like you can do anything so why not try something different. It can help you branch out your skills and even improve old ones. Its always a nice feeling that you decided to try something new even if it didn't turn out the way you imagined. I never tried making fruit with air dry clay, so the next time I get down on my sweets deco I'm going to try to make some strawberries!

I hope everyone found this insightful and a way to start of their deco new year right! I can't wait to see everyone's projects. Take care!

Also if you happened to just starting with the craft here are my tutorial posts to help you make ploymer clay charms!

Chocolate charm tutorials

Ice cream tutorials

Clay whip cream tutorials 

Cupcake tutorials

Lollipop tutorials 

strawberry tutorials

Cute Clay Tutorials: A little more insight

How to make cute jewelry

I made Cute Clay Tutorials so that I can help people who have an interest in making such, cute things! I remember how I started getting into the whole charm thing and really wanted to start making my own. All the necklaces, bracelets, and cell phone trinkets , it was all so creative and I would do anything to start making my own. So did a little research or what was on the web at the time (about late 2008/early 2009) got my last 20 bucks and spend it on everything I could buy to get started. I got down and made a little charm of a chibi devil character. Cute yes, but I wanted to make some of food charms like cakes, ramen, ice cream, etc. I made one of those square chocolates but it didn’t out as well as I wanted. Not to mention I wanted to make a whole stock of candies and sweets like the ones on the net like.

http://notmaggot.deviantart.com/art/Pretty-Rose-Cookie-Pendants-96522988

http://oborochann.deviantart.com/art/February-Charms-47913634

http://blackmago.deviantart.com/art/Cute-Food-Paradise-charms-124155319

The only trouble was that I wasn’t skilled or knowledgeable enough to just start making them on my own, not enough tutorials and surly artists wasn’t going to tell you their methods right off the bat. Since then I searched up and down in books, websites, and forums to get all the details of making cute foods, charms, and jewelry out of ploymer clay to make my dreams come true in making a business out of it too.

I came a long way since then and I’m not a master yet, but I’m surly getting there. And with more and more valuable info finally getting shared in the internets I can only get better and I want to share them with everyone who felt the same as I did. Searching all over the web to get a little piece of info.

So now I want to put all the pieces in one place where anyone can come and get all the info they need to start this exciting adventure!

That’s how Cute Clay Tutorials came to be.

I’ll go over the basics on what you need to start like the polymer clay, paint, findings etc. Some simple beginner tutorials like cookies, candies, sweets, and beyond! I enjoy what I do and I love sharing the info so I hope you’ll give me a chance to show you step by step how to get there! :) So get your tools, creativity, and hands ready for an awesome ride.