By popular request, Paulette is showing you how to make these adorable pincushion ladies!
This is a three-part, free video series. You can download the supply list and pattern pieces here: tulipsq.com/pin-ladies
Week One: Sculpting Heads and Hands (with extra bonus video!)
Week Two: Hair and Scarf, Cutting and Sewing
Week Three: Stuffing, Assembly, and Finishing
Video transcript:
Hi everyone I’m Paulette Morrissey from Tulip Square, and this week we’re going to do something a little bit different. I’m going to show you how to make these cute little pin cushion dolls. I posted, I mentioned them a few weeks ago, and we had a lot of response from people who really want to know how to make these, so we’re going to get started on them. I’m going to break this project down into three weeks, so you don’t have too much to do each week if you want to follow along. So week one which is today, we’re going to learn how to make their polymer heads and hands, and don’t worry if you’ve never made a polymer head for a clay doll or anything, because I’ve been making polymer clay heads for probably 15 years or more and I’ve made many many hundreds of them, and I’ve got it down to a pretty simple science to show you. So we’re going to head over to the clay table and we’re going to work on heads and hands today so let’s go.
Okay so to make our little pin cushion lady the first thing we’re going to have to make is her little polymer head and her little polymer hands. Let’s start with her head.
Every single doll you make is going to look different so don’t expect to be able to make two dolls the same because it just never happens. So what I use for tools is, I have two of these rubber tip tools that are for shaping. I don’t really use them for clay they use them for acrylic paints, all different things, but this one comes to a like a little point, and this one comes to a little dull blade and when you’re, their new they’ve got long black handles. I break them off because I don’t like the big long handle in my way and they’re so old that I’ve got the tape wrapped around them because the paint was coming off, so they don’t look that bad when they’re new. I’ve also got a little tool that has some round ends on it and that’s how I make my eyeball holes, and if you don’t have something like that you can use the end of a paintbrush or any of your tools that have a rounded end, like the end of a paintbrush like that will work fine, and then I have a tool that’s like a sharp pokey thing, the straight edge, and I’ve got a couple other shaping tools that sometimes I use and sometimes I don’t, and I’ve got a little circle cutter which is not absolutely necessary. You can just roll a ball and flatten it out for those pieces, and some tin foil, and for the tin foil
I take a piece about the width of the roll and about maybe 6 inches wide, back this up just a little bit, and I’m just going to crush it into a ball and I want the ball to be about an inch around not real, doesn’t have to be exact, but what you want is it small enough, so it’s smaller than her head, so that you’ve got room to add some clay around it, and you don’t want to crush it as tight as you can get it on here cuz then it’s going to be way too small, but just about like so. Then what I like to do is I condition my clay so it’s nice and soft, and you can condition your clay however you want. You can roll it in your hands, you can use a pasta roller, you can use an acrylic roller, just so you get it nice and soft. The clay I’m using is Prosculpt, that’s my favorite clay for making any kind of little people. You can also use La Doll, you can use Primo, Kato clay, Fimo, and Sculpey two or Sculpey three, don’t use the original Sculpey because it gets too brittle and breaks easy when it’s dry, but any of the other ones that you like, and also cernit it is another one too. But condition the clay so it’s nice and soft. You want it so when you’re playing with it and you take a piece like this, and you squish it and you roll it and anything you do to it, it’s not going to crumble. See how it will stretch but it’s not crumbling, you want it this pliable so it’s nice and soft, so then when you have parts that you have to blend together like if you have two pieces like this, they blend together nicely and easily see like that, that’s how soft you want it, and if your clay is old and a little bit dried out, you can also add a drop or two of the Sculpey clay softener. I think you can buy this at Michaels or Hobby Lobby or Joann’s or any place that sells the clay they usually sell the Sculpey softener and that stuff works pretty good. But what you’re going to do is you got your clay ready and roll it out and when I roll it out on my pasta machine to the thickest roll it ends up to be about an eighth of an inch thick. I think I measured this and it’s about exactly 1/8 of an inch. It doesn’t have to be quite that thick, but pretty close to that thick, and then you’re going to take your piece of tin foil, your little ball and you’re going to just wrap a strip of this. I just cut a couple strips like this, just no particular measurement, somewhere around an inch give or take, it doesn’t really matter. I’m just going to put one on here, and then I’m going to take another one, wrap it around the other way. Basically what I’m doing is making sure that the tin foil is covered completely, and you can squash it in places.
And you don’t want to start with your clay too thin because then you’re going to have to put quite a few layers on here to get it to her head size, and the quicker the thicker layers cover up the wrinkles in the tin foil quicker too, and then I’m just going to give it a little roll between my hands like this, kind of smooth it out pretty good, and don’t worry about fingerprints and everything all over for now because that will be a while. Now when you’re rolling this out if you notice, I don’t know if you can tell, but right here there’s an air bubble in here, where it’s that their air was in there so you don’t want to leave that, so I’m just going to slice that open and I’m going to push it down and get the air out of that area, and then put the clay back down because otherwise you might end up with a big bubble somewhere on her head that you don’t want.
Now I’m going to take a chunk of clay about, let’s see, about the size of a marble or so, it’s not real big I’m just going to put it on the bottom of her, what’s going to be the top or bottom of her head, and I’m just going to blend it onto here. This is going to be her neck.
Blend it on, get it smooth around all the way, like so, and her head is still very lumpy and that’s okay right now. Then I’m going to make a little flange at the bottom and when you make the little flange don’t make it real thin. Don’t go like this because that will break, so you don’t want that, you want it nice and thick like this. It’s just a big fat thing, I’m going to squash that skinny stuff back in there. You want it thick enough and big enough so that it will catch her neck with her clothes on when you’re, when you’re attaching her to her body, so you just want it like so. It doesn’t have to be real pretty it just has to be nice and solid, and you don’t want it too big, you don’t want it as big as her head at all. So you don’t want it like with those edges coming all the way out to here because in her body it’s going to be too big, and we can’t see on that little girl I tell you but I’d show you but she’s all put together and you can’t see the inside or, so, just like so. It’s not perfect, it’s not pretty right now. Now I’m going to just smash her head around a little bit more and I think I want her head a little bit bigger, so I’m just going to find what I think is going to be the front of her head and I’m going to put another piece right across here like so, just to give her head a little bit more height where her face is going to be, then I’m going to smooth that all down. This I just do with my fingers.
I will get it all much better later, but for now we just want it nice and firmly attached, and when you’re working on her, don’t forget that the back of her head and the top of her head will be covered by her little head scarf and her hair, so any little imperfections back there are fine. Then I can take like this metal ferrule part of these tools, and you can smooth this stuff out like that or whatever tool, I mean everybody who plays with clay has got their own favorite tools. So use which ones you’re familiar with, or the ones you like the best, and if you’re new to this don’t buy a whole bunch because just buy a couple and see what you like and don’t like. Okay so I’ve got her this far, now to make her face. What I like to do, and here’s the method I’ve always used. I’ll bring this in a little bit closer. First of all, I cut a piece maybe about a half an inch tall, and there’s a little piece of a hair in there I’m going to pluck off. I keep a rag in my lap so I can wipe stuff off on it. Now this is just a piece an inch wide by maybe a half an inch long, and I’m going to just slice the top edge of it off on an angle so that it’s kind of like a little wedge like this, then I’m going to take my little line tool like this, and I’m going to mark across her head where I want her eyes to go, just like so. A little bit above center. If you were making a child you’d make them right in the center which makes him look younger, and then I’m just going to take my my eyeball tool and I’m just going to mark where I felt, where I want her eyes to go, like so, then I’m going to take that piece I just cut and with the thin edge at the top I’m going to put that so it’s just about for her, about where her eyes, the bottom of her eyes like so. Like so.
And then I’m going to take a little piece of clay, just a little tiny stick of clay like so, and I’m going to put that underneath there and that’s going to be her lower lip and her upper lip right there. Then I’m going to make a little ball for her chin, and these pieces her nose, her lips like this, her chin, her cheeks, all will vary with each doll, because you don’t want your dolls to all look the same, so keep them different looking if you’re making more than one. I’m just going to put this one right here like so, and then I’m going to make a ball about the size of a marble or so, about I would say close to a marble size. I’m going to make that. About like so, maybe 5/8 of an inch circle but not, don’t be exact it’s just what this one happens to be, and I’m just going to cut it in half, and I’m going to put one just overlapping that little edge of her upper cheek or upper mouth whatever, and the other one over here like so.
And then all she needs now is one more little ball for her nose. Now for her nose you can make a ball, you can make a triangle, I’m going to make a triangle for her.
I’m going to make a little triangle just like a little cone. It’s going to be way too big for her face I think but we’re going to use it anyway like so.
So then this is what we’ve got right now. You’ve got a ball for her head, you’ve got half circles for her cheeks, you got a slice for her upper lip, a little roll for her lower lip, a ball for her chin, and a cone for her nose. Now you’re going to spend a few minutes and just blend this all together. I like to blend up like this a little bit and then I’m going to take a piece about, like about this piece, little inch and a half by half an inch, and I’m going to put it across the top here so she has a bit of a forehead above her eyes like so. Now let’s start blending. I’m just using my fingers and I’m just smoothing this, and because this clay is so soft it blends quite easily. If your clay is hard it’s going to take a lot longer to blend these pieces, and I’m not getting it perfect right now, I’m just making sure they’re all connected to each other. Pretty soon you’ll start seeing her little expression appear, and her personality will start showing, and I’m going to just roll this little tool under here where I can’t get my finger, and I can roll her cheeks towards the center. Just use different tools. Use your fingers, I use my tools where I can’t get my fingers in, and my fingers where I can.
That’s what she’s looking like right now, I’m going to back out a little bit so you can, don’t get her blurry.
Now where this big areas are here I’m just going to take this tool and I’m going to smush this all towards her face. I’m not going real hard because I’m not trying to obliterate all her other features, I’m just kind of blending them in there, see like so, right up to her eyes and you see her eyes are kind of disappearing so I’m just going to poke them back in there so I can keep track of where they are, and I’m going to bring her forehead down, and her cheek up, same thing over here bringing her forehead down and her cheek up and there goes her eyes disappearing on me again.
And then the sides of her nose I’m going to bring down, the bottom edge of her nose, and then I’m going to take this part above her chin, it goes to her lower lip. You can see all the little pieces, see her face is starting to form a little bit. It’s obviously not a very happy face right now.
Now I’m just going to take a little bit more time and smooth out all these lines.
Make sure I don’t lose her eyes.
You’re going to have fingerprints all over her head right now, but the ones that are on the back of her head are fine, and the other ones we’ll get rid of later.
Remember use your fingers or use whatever are your favorite tools.
Ok, I’ve got enough of her smoothed out that I can start working on her actual face now, got a couple little runs around her nose here.
Okay, she’s kind of bland looking right now so now we’ve got to fix that, so I’m going to start with her nose. I’m going to give her a bit of a bridge here and just pull up a little bit, you’re a little bit of a bridge of a nose then I’m going to go, I’m going to take this tool with the flat edge and I’m going to go under her nose like this, just lightly, and then I’m going to go up and around and make her kind of a nostril on that side, but the side of a nose or something, and up like so, and then so that’s not real obviously I’m going to smooth it out just a little bit, and then I’m going to make two nostrils down here. Let’s give her some long nostrils like so. Then I’m going to push her nose down a little bit. I want it to be down a little bit like so, and you shape her nose how you want it. It can be pointy, it can be round, it can be long, it can be little, pointing up a little, perky nose, big nostrils, little nostrils, and then I’m going to take, this tool will work, this one with the little scoop on it and I’m just going to stick it in her mouth and make it so she’s kind of got a look of her upper lip like so, and I’m not loving that but we’ll fix it later. Just getting kind of a mouth there. Okay, a little more blending on her chin right there. Okay now what I’m going to do is, I’m just going to put my thumbs lightly here on each side and I’m just going to push up a little bit, in and up so she’s got a little bit of a dent right here, can you see that, a little bit here and push those cheeks up a little more towards her eyes.
Just a little not a lot, big old fingerprint there, okay then I’m going to take this tool again and I’m going to push up over here, and up over here, like so. Let’s make her happy. Then I can also take it and go this way.
There now she’s suddenly happy okay?
Dent in there, like so, and then I’m going to take and make a little line that goes from the corner of her nostril like so, up to that smile line just like so, very lightly.
Then I’m going to just move her little cheek here, you just do a little tweaks and every like, every face you make will be different, and some you’ll like, and some you won’t like, and I’ll show you what to do with the ones you don’t like, you can just smush them back into a ball and do them again.
I’m going to smooth that line up just a little bit so it doesn’t look too much like it was just drawn on there, she can have a little bit of a dent there, you could give her a little dimple if you wanted to. She doesn’t want dimples but if she wanted them she could have them. Okay and then I’m going to make her eyeballs holes again a little bit, but this time I’m going to make him a little bit bigger cuz these are what we’re going to use for her eyes, there’s her eyeball holes, eye sockets I guess we could call them not eyeball holes. But and remember all of this stuff back here, it doesn’t matter how lumpy it is because that’s going to get hidden. So all you want is her cheeks and her face, and her forehead.
Now there she looks like a pretty happy little old lady doesn’t she. Well she will when we’re done. Smooth out that inside of her mouth just a little bit.
Make a little bit of a dent here and here, oh and then you have to give her that little dip between her nostrils like this, between the front lips like that, it’s got to have that. Okay she looks pretty happy doesn’t she. Double check that my little neck flange is still solid and intact here, and make sure that this part of that’s her neck is thick enough, that it’s it’s sturdy. You don’t want to make her like a skinny little quarter inch neck, make that at least a half an inch wide. That looks good. Okay so now I’m going to set aside all this clay, and we’re going to make, add her features. Now I make the features all out of colored clay. If you don’t want them out of colored clay and you prefer to paint them that’s fine, then you would make them all out of the same flesh colored clay and then you’d go back and paint them. I personally don’t like painting little tiny features so I make the features out of clay.
I keep a little tray, of my feature, my feature colors. I’ve got white for their eyes, I got pinks for their lips, I got browns, and different colors for their eyebrows, and their hair, not their hair their eyebrows in there, and their eyes and all these different colors for eyes, and the black for their pupils. So I’m going to take a little circle, a little gob of white, and I’m going to soften it really good and we probably come in close for face work, oops wiggled the camera. Ok.
I’m just going to make this really soft. I want this nice and soft so it’s very pliable, so it doesn’t mess up when I stick it in her eyeball, and I’m going to make two little circles.
These circles are about, they’re the size, they’re small enough to fit in her eye sockets okay, you want them to fit right into her eyes. So I can actually that one’s way too small, so I can make them a little bit bigger, and you just play around with how big they have to be but try to make them both the same size.
I like to roll them sometimes on here and sometimes on my finger like this, trying to get two of them the same size and then I’m just going to drop them in her eyeballs like this. Oops there’s a crack in that one, put it down in the bottom like so, and this one’s not very smooth at all…and we’ll drop that one in there.
So now she’s got the whites of her eyes. Now I’m going to take a little bit of a brown for her eyeballs, for her cute, for her irises you know irises, and this is not a very big piece. It’s like smaller, it’s about half the size of the round one for the white one, and I’m just going to roll it out just a little bit like so.
And I’m going to cut two little circles, very little circles. Now this is the part that, if you don’t really like doing this with all the colors, if you want to do this and just paint the eyes that’s perfectly acceptable. I just find it easier to do it in clay. Now I’ve got two little circles here and I’m just going to lightly squash them onto my table.
I’m just using the end of my tool here and just smash them on the table and then you can just take your finger and kind of grab them like so, then I’m going to take one of my tools like this flat tool. Sometimes they stick really nicely to the flat tool and sometimes they don’t, and I’m just going to put one on our eye like so, and she’s going to be looking to the left. Then I’m going to take the other one and hopefully get both eyes looking the same direction.
You can maneuver them around a little bit and that one’s really kind of goofy looking isn’t it, not quite looking the same there are they, oops got a little clay on her head there. I think that’s pretty good.
Now I’m going to take a tiny little piece of black, even tinier than the piece that I used for the brown.
This whole piece is about half the size of one of the brown pieces, just like the size of a poppy seed almost, a little bit bigger. I’m going to cut it into half, into two pieces that do look like poppy seeds.
Teeny tiny little circles like this, like so, I’m going to put them back on the table, actually, if we can get it off my finger.
Then I’m going to take this flat tool that I like and I’m just going to pick up one of those circles and I’m going to put it on her eyeball like so, and I’m just going to flatten it. Like that. Get the other one, and try to keep it round, so don’t distort the shape of it.
That one’s kind of looking up isn’t it. We’re just going to push that part of her eyeball down a little.
You can kind of move the eyeballs around a little bit yet because we aren’t really completely in there, like so. Now I’m going to take a piece of clay again and I’m going to roll this piece out just a little bit thinner because it’s pretty thick from making her head. So I’m just rolling it, I just use my exacto knife blade for a rolling pin sometimes, and I’ve got this little cutting tool and I’m just going to cut a circle. Now if you don’t have a cutting tool do not fret, all you have to do is make a little circle of clay like so, no even smaller than that I think, just a little circle like this and flatten it. It’s a little bit bigger but that’s okay.
And what you’re going to do is, you’re going to cut two pieces off of it. So you want two little wedges like top and bottom, and you’re not going to use this middle piece, and over here if you’re going to use these, you take this one and this one, and you wouldn’t use this middle piece. Okay so either one doesn’t matter. I’m going to use the smaller ones. I’m going to put this on her eye for an eyelid up here, and I’m going to tip it down a little bit because she’s a little old lady, so she’s got kind of tired eyes, you know how that goes. And this one goes here and down a little bit like so, and then I’m going to take my pointy tool and I’m just going to tuck that down like this a little bit. I’m going to smooth out that top edge but I’m not going to make it disappear completely into her head, because her eyelids are you know, not blended into your forehead perfectly, so just like that. Same thing here, just going to tuck that corner down, and that corner down, and I’m just going to smooth these down, like so.
Couple around here like so, there we go, like so. Smooth that down just a tiny bit more.
Then I think I’m going to take, these other two are too big, we’re going to make some smaller ones.
If you have a tiny paper, tinier circle cutter you can do this with a circle cutter, but I don’t have a smaller one so I’m just going to make a little ball, flatten it and cut to the edges like that again, and get rid of the middle.
I’m going to use these little pieces under her eyes.
Just like a little bit of a bag under her eye just a little bit.
Tuck it over in the corner and tuck it up. Make sure it doesn’t cover up her eye completely but it can cover up the bottom edge of it a little bit, and then I’m just going to go around like so, just like that. I’m going to take the other one, and do the same thing on the other eye.
Take that little piece and start it inner corner, oops caught on my finger.
Just going to put it right like so.
Wrap it around, tuck it in.
Blend in that little edge like so, now smooth out those lines, like so.
Make sure her eye lid, her eye isn’t covered, just adjust it a little bit if you need to, like so. So we’ve got pretty much of her head done I’m almost done there.
I’m going to poke her nose just a little bit at the end, like I have a little bit more of a shape to her nose. Oo I like that, got a long pointy nose, I like that. Yeah I like that nose. Okay now we’re going to give her some lips, eyebrows, let’s do her eyebrows, I’ve already got the brown clay out.
For eyebrows I’m just going to roll up a long skinny little piece of clay and I’m kind of rolling it to a point at each end. Not much of a point just a little bit, and then I’m going to cut it in half and I’m going to put one above this eye and one above this eye, like so, and then they’re barely touching the clay right now so I can still maneuver them around a little bit. So I can have her eyes raised, eyebrows raised if she’s looking surprised, or calm or whatever. I don’t like to ever make them both exactly the same. I like expressions. There we go.
There she is.
Now let’s give her some lips. For the lips I use a light pink that I’ve mixed half and half with the flesh because it gives it a softer, better look for lips that I like, and I’m going to just soften this up a little bit by rolling it around get it nice and soft.
And then I’m going to roll it out a little bit like so, and then I’m going to roll it kind of flat with my with my exacto like that, just a tiny bit. I’m going to take a piece about, not even a half an inch long, I’m kind of pointing it at the corners a little bit.
Yeah I don’t like that, I’m just going to roll it back up. Let’s do this instead. Just going to take that little ball and roll it out like so, so it’s got, so it comes to a point kind of at both ends like this, then I’m going to put it down and flatten it just a little bit like so, not a lot and that is going to be her lower lip. I’m going to put that right inside of her mouth actually right to the front edge. It’s kind of centered and it’s not going to go all the way across her whole mouth just most of the way. Then I’m going to take that flat tool and I’m going to smish it into the inside of her mouth like so, then I’m going to bring it over to the corners and let it kind of slide over there a little bit. Make sure it stays in her mouth, and then I’m going to smooth down that front edge because your lip does not have a ledge, it blends in with your face.
So there she’s got her lower mouth it was easy wasn’t it.
Lower mouth, how’s that for a new phrase, your lower mouth. Okay and then I’m going to just make that little edge around her mouth a little bit more defined with this tool, like so. Now we’re going to do her upper mouth and since I’ve just closed her mouth I’m going to open it up a little bit so I can get her upper mouth, her upper lip in there. Okay then I’m going to take this piece down here that I’ve cut and I’m going to cut about this much of it, three quarters of an inch maybe, and I’m just going to cut off two of the corners, like so.
Then pick it up like so, and going to bend it like that a little bit, and then it’s going to go in her mouth right like that. Get those little points off to the corners, and I’m going to shove this one over this way a little bit, and this one over this way, and you do this very gently because it doesn’t take a lot of force to get this clay in here, and then I’m going to bring the top edge up to meet her skin on her face, oops, smack her in the nose with my tool, and then I’m going to bring these little two peaks of her lips up like so. See what I’m doing I’m rolling up right here, and right here, and keeping this part down, then I’m going to finish off this little corner here, and this little corner here. I don’t want her mouth coming out of her face, and then we’re going to tuck these in, and these in, and then we’re going to tidy it up wherever we don’t like, like I don’t like that little lip piece right there so I’m just going to take it and tuck it into her mouth more like so. Just tucking it in like this. The same thing over here, I don’t like that little thing sticking out so I’m just going to take this tool and tuck it up into her mouth, and then I’ll smooth it down. Like so.
This little part here I don’t want sticking out so much, and this part I don’t want sticking out so much. So now I’m going to take this tool and just roll those. Just roll it gently, you’re just kind of basically blending that hard line.
Make sure she keeps her little smile lines. I’m going to keep her little line there, and the line there.
Now what I’m going to do is gently go around and just smooth out without messing up her head. I’m only hanging on to the back of her head and the top of it. I’m just smoothing out any areas where you get obvious fingerprints or anything.
She looks pretty good.
Remember they can have little wrinkles and imperfections cuz it’s a little lady okay, and we don’t need ears because they’re going to be hidden in her little scarf, and then I’m going to take my tiny tool, even the back of your exacto knife works for this and I’m just going to make some little crows feet here by her eyes, just some little tiny lines cuz just get crows feet, and some over here, give her a couple little crows feet like so, and then I think I’m also going to take this tool make sure this line is visible and make another little partial line below it. It just a little old lady lines okay, like so. I can even have dimples but I don’t know if I want the dimples. Sure she can have a little dimples there we go. Now her flange on her neck is good yet, can set her down here, make sure that the flange goes all the way around, big enough difference to catch her cloth neck and I think her little head is ready to go to be baked, but can make her hands, but she’s all ready, she looks pretty good doesn’t she. Her head is a little bit bigger than this lady’s head but that doesn’t matter it’s not much different.
And they never come out the same ever. So I’m just going to set her over here so I don’t bop her around. Now I’m going to show you, if you’re working on a head and you decide you don’t like it, before you’ve added any color, without wasting a bunch of your clay or anything, you can take the clay like let’s say this one’s already got a face on it you don’t like it. All you have to do is take off most of the clay. Just cut into it. If you don’t get all the clay it’s okay but otherwise if you can get all the clay fine just take it off the foil and start over, okay. And then you still got your foil ball, and you haven’t wasted any clay, and you can roll that clay back up again and use it again. Now if you’ve already got a face on someone and you didn’t like it, what you’d have to do is cut off the parts that have the, let’s show you on her. We don’t like her. I’m going to cut that one off. I’m going to cut her lips off and you will have some wasted clay here because you’ve got the stuff with the color already on it, and sometimes you just get to a point where you can’t do anything with a face, and you just don’t like it. Now if you, if you’re painting your face you don’t have to worry about the clay, the colored clay, but if you did it with the colored clay and you just don’t like what you’ve done, just cut out the colored clay.
Cut off your eyelids, eyebrows I mean cut off the brown. You don’t want to leave any of that brown or of the color and I’m going to show you, you’re not really wasting the clay when you do this. Cut off that eyebrow, it’s kind of terrible to do to a little old lady isn’t it.
And then I’m going to cut out her eyeballs. Kinda creepy isn’t it.
Want all the way out so we don’t accidentally get any of that white in there mixed up with her flesh.
Now what you got left is this, and you can take this and you can make a really creepy little face like that, you can take this and smash it all back down, like so, and then you got a whole new head you can just go back to working on, and if you put her head where it was that clay has probably not been overly handled and hasn’t gotten dirty where the back of her head might have from all her handling. But you just cut off most of what was working on here and you can also take your blade if you see some little imperfections on it or some little bits of dirt just scrape them off like this. Just a little tiny hairs or little tiny pieces of crud, just scrape them off, and this junk that you cut off with little colors on them you can just use that on the back of her head or on the back of another doll’s head just to make her head big enough that’s going to be covered up anyway, so you can do it like that or you can use it as part of the flange on her neck, doesn’t matter, but they can be used for anything. It can just be used as a filler on the next doll, on the flange of this one, or whatever you want. So then this little neck head with a little shoulder plate already on it can be smoothed out.
And she’s ready for a new face just like so. Now we’re going to make hands. Hands are really easy because there’s not much to them at all. We’re just going to make some hands with arms on them, not a lot of detail because they’re just going to be there to hold a little basket or something. So you’re going to roll out a little log with your nice soft clay.
Make sure there’s no bubbles in it. When you roll it out you shouldn’t feel any bubbles from any air pockets.
I’m going to cut this about, I would say this is about a half an inch thick, and I’m going to cut pieces that are each about I’m guessing 2 inches long, inch and a half long, that’s how good I can measure by eyeball. You’re not even an inch and a half, less than an inch and a half long and 3/8 of an inch wide at the most. Okay that’s what these are.
3/8 of an inch wide, not even an inch and a half long, which is not real critical either. So you’re going to take one end and you’re going to round it off, like so, and then you’re going to flatten it a little bit, and then you take your knife and just cut a little thing, just like so. Just like so.
Smooth it out, make a little thumb there, make a bit of a wrist not too much.
And then how I just make her little fingers, so I’m going to take this tool like this, little pin works too, and you can just go one, two, three, and then I also notched them at the top, so I can make sure that they continue on the other side of her hand in the right spot then I go one, two, and three, and I take my little tool, this little handy tool and I make him a little more visible, like so, and then I squish them a little bit, so they’re not quite so fat chubby little fingers, there like so.
And that’s one hand, watch me do another one. Take the end and I’m not flattening it a lot, I’m just taking the fatness off of it, okay, I didn’t flatten it a lot, it’s still quite a bit thick, then I’m going to take my exacto knife and I’m going to cut just a little spot to be her thumb. I’m going to pull that thumb away and round it a little bit, and then I’m going to round that little part of her hand that I just cut the thumb off of, and then I’m going to take this too and go one, two, three, mark them on the top too, and around the other side. Make sure you make a left hand and a right hand. Then I’m going to take this tool to continue to define those little spaces between the fingers a little bit better. And one, two, three, squash your hand a little bit, give her a bit of a wrist, not a lot, then you’ve got two hands. And then, I’m going to just curve them a little bit, like so. Oh and if you want you can take a tiny little tool, anything that comes with a dull point, and you can make little teeny tiny indents to look like thumbnails and fingernails. Just a little bitty ones like so.
And like before make sure you do a left hand and a right hand, and these aren’t going in very far at all, they’re just a little dent on the end of each finger like so, and then I’m just going to put one hand kind of like this, and one hand kind of like this, so they’re just kind of curved around. This hand is kind of weird isn’t it. Have to fix this one a little bit, got a weird little hand here.
There we go, that’s better. Now she’s got two little hands and these pieces are ready to be baked right along with the head. One trick I noticed that works pretty good when I’m baking the dolls is I put them in a baking pan, but a foil baking pan deep enough, and I put foil on top of the pan also and put them in the oven like that, and then the temperature inside the oven stays nice and consistent for that, and that inside that little pan and you don’t have to worry about the fluctuations in your oven, whether it’s your real oven or you got a little clay oven, whatever, and they’re completely enclosed in there so you don’t have to worry about fumes or anything else. So just a little tip. All right I will see you next week.
All right once your heads come out of your oven, and they’re a little bit warm yet, not hot, but a little warm, I like to take some blush. This is just regular people blush I think, I don’t even know what it is, yeah it’s just regular ladies blush and I just put the tiniest little bit on my finger, and just, let me get this out of the way here, and just touch it, get a little bit better light here there we go okay.
Just going to touch it on her cheek a little bit, really lightly, because once you put it on it’s not coming off. Okay so make sure you put it on lightly and if you want more you can add more, but don’t put a bunch on first because you’re stuck with whatever you put on. I like to do a little touch on their nose.
You can also use chalks, if you have like crafting chalks, we can use chalks for this, which are a little easier to use, I just don’t have any and I’ve gotten in the habit of using the blush so I just use the blush. I just put a little bit on her face, a little bit on her nose, a little bit on her chin. Mostly on her cheeks, touch on her eyelids, like so. I’ll show you on another head. There’s another little head, put it on her cheek here,
and if you’ve got, if you didn’t smooth out their head really well, their skin, you’ll notice it when you put the blush on.
Because it will show up all the little crevices and stuff but they’re wrinkly little old ladies so that’s not the end of the world either.
Okay now once your dolls have come out of the oven, and everything is nice and cooled off completely, you’re going to need to glaze their eyes, give their eyes a little bit of gloss and their lips. And I use the Sculpey gloss glaze. There’s a lot of other brands out there, I think you can also use the clear sealers that they make for acrylic paints, and in a pinch you could probably use clear nail polish, but test it on some part of the clay first to make sure it dries and it doesn’t stay sticky. But all I’m doing is putting this on her eye.
I’ve already put one coat on each of these eyes so I’m just putting a second coat on and make sure you let the coats dry in between. And two light coats is better than one heavy coat. They kind of tend to smooth themselves out better, and it dries better.
So where it’s kind of white right now that will dry clear. Make sure you get into the whites of the eyes too.
Just like so, and that will dry, and it will not look all white and milky.
Lips already have one coat, we’ll give him one more coat, sometimes I give the lips two coats sometimes I give them one coat.
Just like so. Let that dry and all these little areas will smooth out. Shouldn’t keep touching it with the brush though.
That’s all there is to that. I got both of these glazed, glossed, and they are ready to go on to the next step, and that is all we’re going to get done this week. So if you’re going to work along with us, make sure your heads are done and ready, and we’ll get started on putting your little heads onto their bodies and sewing some of their parts next week, so we’ll see you next week bye-bye.
Okay so now we’ve got their little heads done, and their hands done on your little pincushion head doll, and next week we’re going to put her hair on, and we’re going to put this little scarf on her head, and then we’re going to cut out all of the fabric. So get your fabric selected and collected, and we’re going to make all the little clothing parts, and we’re going to fix her hair, and we’re going to sew all the parts that need to be sewn. We’re going to sew the sleeves on her arms and that is going to be our project for next week. So go gather up your supplies, and if you’re going to make a little shawl or something for her instead of using a fabric one, you can get busy on that. Check the little list we put down in the descriptions below for what else you might need to make her, to get your parts ready for next week, and if you want to crochet a little basket go ahead and do that and then we’ll see you next week bye-bye.