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 ^_^"

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. ;)

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!