Animal Donut Charms

These animal donuts have been a huge sensation on the Internet. I first came across them at Ueno station in Japan but I've seen them around many small bakeries across Tokyo. So here's my first attempt at making animal donuts using paper clay and trying out a new icing technique using PVA glue. They turned out quite okay looking for a first try, but obviously practise makes perfect.

To make the icing I combined PVA glue with some water colour paints to make the glue opaque when it dried. I simply dipped the paper clay into the glue and that was it (wanring: extremely messy process!)! When the glue dried it formed a thin layer on top of the paper clay giving it the appearance of icing. It wasn't perfect I admit, and I would have preferred it if the glue was a lot thicker in appearance when it dried. I really want to try buying a hot glue gun and seeing if it gives a better effect. If I do, you'll definitely see a post about it.

Here we have 6 animal donuts: panda, chicken, pig, cow, rabbit and a cat. I feel like the panda donut doesn't quite fit in because it has a different style of eyes compared to the other animals..But I'm sure next time I'll try to make them more similar to each other.

(Here's a cow!)

(And a panda)

(And a cat ^_^)

(Chicken)

 (The pig looked a little bit plain so I added some fake whipped cream)

(Same with the bunny rabbit!)

(The under side was coloured with brown paint to make it look more like a donut. However some of the glue icing got stuck to the bottom so it looks quite messy ><)

So there you have it! Sorry if the pictures are a little bit crap, I've never had awesome photography skills ^_^"

Turtle Bread Charm

A while ago I went to a Chinese bakery and saw that they were selling sweet turtle shaped breads and that inspired me to make my own turtle breads! I might have mentioned this before, but I really love making cute foods whether they're real or made with clay so here was another one of my projects that I completed quite a while ago.

The turtle bread that I ate from the Chinese bakery was very different to the ones that I made. They were made from plain sweet bread and had some sort of chocolate filling inside. I decided to twist the recipe a bit and make my bread more like the Melon breads that they sell in Japan. This meant that there was a crunchy cookie layer on top of the soft bread. If you look at the photo, the green layer is made of cookie and the body of the turtle is from sweet bread. In the end you get this awesome combination of textures and flavours and it was really cute and delicious!

Yes you can actually eat these ^o^

Now it has been a few months since I made that batch of turtle bread. I haven't been in the mood for baking lately and decided for this blog post, I would make a little clay charm of the turtle breads that I baked back then.

You'll need to do this in two steps. I first made the body of the turtle with brown coloured clay then attached a separate layer of green clay on top to make the cookie crust. If you look at the charm from the side you can see that the green layer actually sits on top and resembles the baked bread in the previous photo.  Add a little smiley face to the turtle, glaze it and then you're done! Maybe some pictures will help.

Into the glaze tin

Completed charm!

 Hehe it has a stupid face.

Oh no! We have a flipped turtle here.

Incase you didn't see it's silly face, here's a close up :)

And the side! (Top layer as described)

So there you have a little turtle bread charm. Too bad I don't have an actual baked turtle bread to compare it with but hopefully you can see the resemblance from the photos ^-^.

Clay glaze..?

So you've made your clay charms, what's next? Well something that I probably have forgotten to mention is that paper-clay will fade out in colour if you do leave it exposed for a long time. You also don't want your clay to get wet because it will change the structure of the clay and degrade.

To keep your clay creations lasting longer and stronger you will need to invest some money into buying a glaze for your clay. I've read online that people like to use the popular Sculpy Glossy Gloss Glaze but I found that the Sculpy glaze gets sticky overtime particularly on Paper Clay. I'm not too sure how it works with Polymer clay..

Anyway, after a bit of research I found out that many people use floor varnish to coat their clay charms and creations. I went to my local Bunnings Warehouse and bought a tin of clear wood varnish and I pretty much use this for all my clay creations whether it be paper or polymer clay.

Here we have Feast Watson's clear polyurethane wood varnish. This cost me $15 for a 250mL tin which I reckon is okay seeing how I use to buy clay glaze for $8 for 30mL (yikes pricey!). It comes in 3 different types: Gloss, Satin and Matte. The gloss comes out really thick and super shiny. It's way more shinier than the Sculpy Glaze that I previously used. On the other end is the Matte glaze that doesn't have a shine at all. I know some glazes say they're matte yet they still end up with a hint of shine to them, this one has ZERO shine to it. And then you have something in between, the Satin glaze which is shiny but it's just not as thick and not as glossy as the Gloss.

I wasn't too sure whether I wanted the Satin or the Gloss glaze because most of my clay creations are of miniature foods and if I really wanted them to look realistic they shouldn't have any shine at all...But I couldn't resist the sparkle of the gloss glaze so I went with it.

To apply this glaze on my charm, I literally just hang my clay charm on a paperclip and dip it into the tin and then leave it to hang somewhere. The Gloss varnish is really thick and there will be quite a bit of drip when you first dip your charm in and hence you will need to cover your working space (I use baking paper). If you take a look at the photos below you can see how it's done.

Clay without any glaze~

Clay hanging on a paper clip~ (and the drip I was talking about)

Clay all glazed and dried~! (oooh so shiny *_*)

I know the varnish says it's clear but in fact the glaze has a slightly yellow/brown tint to it. By looking at the photos you can see that the charm has gotten a lot darker after being glazed and in the second photo you can see the drip on the paper is brown colour. This isn't really a problem for me...but I know a lot of people will want to preserve the colour of their clay and if you're one of them, then wood varnish is not for you and you might want to invest in an actual craft glaze.

The photos show just one coat of the glaze. If you add another coat it'll be thicker and I suppose shinier to some extent but it takes quite a bit of time to dry. One coating took about an entire day to completely dry. You'll need to make sure it's not in a super dusty place otherwise you'll have dust sticking to it. And try refrain yourself from touching the charm whilst it's drying, I know it's very tempting. ;)

More about Paper clay

I've decided that today I will be continuing on with the list of materials required to making clay creations so that you do get a good grasp as to what you will need. So this blog post will be all about Paper clay!

In my previous post, I had a mini comparison session between Paper clay and Polymer clay. Because I use Paper clay the most when making clay charms, I thought it would be interesting to show you what type of Paper clay I use and maybe do like a mini review of each brand. 

If you're living in Japan then Paper clay is super affordable and easy to get your hands on. But since moving to Australia I've found that paper clay is really, really difficult to find. Luckily as I have mentioned, there is now a DAISO here and it's now quite easy to buy Paper clay otherwise I would stock up on Paper clay each time I went back to Japan.

So let's take a look at the types of clay that I use. Here are 4 types of Paper clay that I use most frequently. 3 of them have been bought from DAISO and the last one is from Japan. All of them are air-dry clays so there's no baking required. Just a lot of waiting...

The first clay we'll be looking at is Paper clay bought from DAISO. I bought this from the DAISO in Australia so it cost me $2.80 for the 500g packet. This clay resembles mud in the sense that it's really moist to begin with and has a very dense texture. The colour is not pure white and so the clay will have a grey-ish tint when you add coloured paints to it. I don't find the grey tint a problem because usually I'm adding a layer of paint on top of the clay and so it doesn't have a huge impact on my creations. It becomes a bit difficult if you're using some sort of mould to shape your clay because it's so moist, it just smears when removing it from the mould.

This is wood clay also bought from DAISO. This clay is super light in weight and has more of a paper texture. In other words it has a paper-mache/damp tissue feeling. The clay comes in a brown colour that stays prominent even after adding coloured paints to it. Like the clay above, it shouldn't be a big issue if you're going to be adding a layer of paint on top of the clay. I like to use this clay when making brown clay creations because it saves me the time of having to colour white clay. It dries super fast as well and you can remoisten your clay by adding water.

And here's your standard paper clay from DAISO once again. This paper clay comes in a variety of colours: black, blue, yellow, red etc. I like to buy the white clay and make my own colours by adding paint. Alternatively you can buy the pre-coloured clay and mix them together to form the colours of your choice. This paper clay is super light weight, and dries pretty fast. You can use different moulds to shape this clay, it's pretty easy to use but I do find that it sticks to surfaces quite easily. If it gets a bit dry, simply add water and your clay is good to go again!

The last one is part of the Tamiya Decoration Series. So the Tamiya Decorations Series brand in Japan has a range of materials and tools that allow you create your very own clay sweets. This cost me about 400yen and is very similar to the white paper clay bought at DAISO. I think the only difference is probably the quality of the clay. On feel, you can tell that the Tamiya Decorations clay is of higher quality. It's super soft, retains its moisture for longer and doesn't stick to surfaces or moulds as easily as the previous clay. I think the best thing about this clay is that it is really easy to create the texture of cookies, breads, ice cream etc. 

So there you have a little insight into the clays that I use. There are heaps and heaps of brands of air-dry clay out there. I know people use COSMOS, Kutsuwa Fuwafuwa, Premier etc that are much higher in quality. I'm happy to just settle with DAISO clay because it's just too troublesome to order other brands online. Plus the online prices are way more expensive than the retail price in Japan.

Be aware that these are all air-dry clays and so leaving them out will dry them up. You can remoisten paper clay but if it gets to the point that it is completely dry, it just becomes really difficult. I recommend double bagging your clay in a snap-lock bag and keeping it in a cool storage area. :)

Polymer vs Paper clay?

Making your own clay charms or creations is really not that hard. When I first discovered clay charms on my search through kawaii blogs, I immediately wanted to buy some clay and make my own charms straight away! And I'm sure there are many people out there who were just as keen as I was. But sooner or later it became apparent to me that making clay charms requires an extensive list of materials and tools. So before you jump into the world of clay creations you might want to ask yourself a few questions.

Probably the first decision you need to make when embarking on your road to creating your own clay charms is deciding what type of clay to use. Many of the blogs that I followed were from people living in America and the type of clay that was most popular was Polymer Clay. For those who don't know, Polymer Clay is a type of clay that contains PVC and liquid plasticiser and you need to bake it in an oven for it to harden. Usually the stuff comes in an array of colours and sizes and you can mix several colours together to achieve the colour you desire! 

It sounds pretty simple, except for the fact that in Australia the stuff costs $5.25 for 75g...Another thing that I found quite annoying was the idea of having to mix different colours together to achieve the colour you want. I suppose you could add acrylic paint to the clay but I've heard that may create difficulties when baking it such as bubbling. Other methods include painting on-top of the clay once it has hardened or even before baking but the original colour of the clay will still remain underneath the paint.

If you're willing to spend the money then Polymer Clay is definitely suitable to make your clay charms and is still by far the most popular type of clay to use. I bought a whole bunch of colours of Polymer clay online for $12 and the stuff is fun to play with.

But if you ask me, Polymer clay is not the type of clay that I prefer to use. In Japan, people would often make miniature food charms using Paper clay and so it was super popular over there. Paper clay is a soft, air-dry clay which means you don't need to bake it. All you need to do is leave it out to dry and eventually it will harden. Similar to Polymer clay, Paper clay comes in several colours and you can simply mix colours together to achieve the colour you desire.

What I love the most about Paper clay is the fact that you can add acrylic or water-colour paints to colour the clay itself. You can also paint on-top of it. As a result I only ever buy white Paper clay and add different coloured paints to change its colour.

Another handy benefit of Paper clay is that you can add water to the clay whenever it feels a bit too dry. Softening or reconditioning dried out Polymer Clay is horrible and sometimes I just can't be bothered and throw it all out. But with Paper clay it's hardly ever a problem. You can easily prevent dried out Paper clay by spraying it with water from a spritz bottle before storing it away.

I guess if you're not too picky you can use whatever clay you want. Both Polymer and Paper clay seem interchangeable but it really depends on what you're making and what you plan on doing with it. I personally prefer working with Paper clay and I rarely use Polymer clay thus I don't know too much about it...

So I hope I haven't bombarded you with this waffly debate on clay. But these are the things you should be considering when starting your clay creation journey. Maybe the next post will continue on the list of materials and tools or maybe I'll show you something that I created. Happy clay making!

Let's get blogging!

Yesterday I decided to start my very first blog without really thinking of what I was going to blog about. After much thought I've decided that this blog will be dedicated to writing about my hobbies! If you know anything about me (which you won't) I enjoy arts, crafts and cooking. These things may not sound very interesting to blog about, but it was amongst a long list of blog topics that have been circulating in my mind.

Okay, so why have I decided to blog about my hobbies? Why didn't I choose makeup, movies, travel or daily university life? I guess it's because my interest really lies in arts and craft. I try my best to fuel my creativity whenever I can and this occurs quite often. As a result, there should be plenty of content for me to write an interesting blog (or so I hope.).

So let's start with arts and crafts. When I was living in Japan, the biggest thing was DIY-anything. If you've ever been to Japan, you would know what I was talking about. People there have a high level of patience when it comes to creating something of their own. Take Bentos (packed lunch box) for example; the time and effort invested into personalising your lunch for the day has always been surprising to me. My friends in high school use to wake up at 5am just to make their bentos look super 'kawaii'. I just could never be bothered. Although I always appreciated the skill and commitment required. There is also a massive market out there for miniature objects like food, furniture and clothing. Have any of you heard of Re-Ment? They're extremely tiny and cute collectables mainly of food. Check them out at http://www.re-ment.co.jp/ and you'll understand what I mean.

Japan was craft-heaven for me. If I needed any materials or tools to make something, I could simply pop into the nearest Tokyu Hands or DAISO to get what I wanted. If you've never been to Japan, Tokyu Hands is a massive Hobbies chain with stores going up to 20 floors high and DAISO is the 100yen shop. My favourite hobby was creating clay charms of miniature food and this was a major hobby for many girls in Japan.

However, after moving to Australia I found that it became a bit of a struggle to continue my hobby. First of all, the materials and tools that you can easily get in Japan are extremely difficult to find in Australia. I went into Sydney's largest Lincraft and was told that they did not sell felting needles or paper clay. Nor did any Riot Art & Craft store have simple dotting tools or polyurethane glaze.

Second of all, everything is more expensive. I find that anything from Japan is sold at around 5x the original price in Australia *sigh*. Thank goodness they opened a DAISO here in Sydney but at $2.80 per item, you don't get the same 'Omg it's so cheap' effect as you would in Japan.

And last of all, craft materials and tools are so segregated that I have to travel to several places just to get my materials. Sometimes I find that it's just easier to buy everything online now a days. But despite these difficulties I still have much love for clay creations and so if I do continue with this blog, you'll probably see a lot of clay stories...So let's start blogging!

One does not simply make a blog.

It's been years since I first sparked an interest in blogging. Yes, I was one of those teenage girls who typed 'kawaii blogs' into Google and spent hours reading through the blogs of others. I was fascinated by clay charms, cute foods and anything anime and I have a feeling that most girls (or maybe it was just me..) goes through this stage.

Every Summer, I would write out a list of 'things to do' and blogging would always be there on my list. So why has it taken me almost 8 years to start my first blog? Well, the answer is simple. One does not simply make a blog.

Yes I know, there are going to be lots of people who scoff at my answer. I understand that ANYONE can make a blog. There are plenty of free blogging platforms such as Tumblr and Wordpress out there on the internet. All you need to do is sign up, right?

Wrong. Writing a blog takes quite a bit of skill and creativity. Not only do you need to invest time and effort into writing a blog, but you also need to write about something that captures the interest of others. Finding a market of people who find your writing interesting is a very difficult thing to do. There are just so many bloggers out there that the internet has become cluttered with topics and topics to choose from. It becomes very competitive to drive interest towards your blog if someone has already written about the same thing but in a better way.

A graduate from eWeb Marketing once told me that the aim of a blog was to generate viewers and get your name out there. Do I want hundreds of people to read my blog and know my name? Not really...In fact, I don't even care if people find my blog interesting or not. People blog to entertain, to educate, to make a statement to others, but I'm just blogging for myself.

This is my way of dealing with ups and downs of life. Writing has always been an enjoyable activity for me so why not make something of it? I guess the next question is: what will I blog about? To be honest I don't have a clear idea of a topic or theme. Maybe I should pursue my dream of always wanting to write a kawaii blog? Or maybe not...I sure don't want to keep blogging about blogging.