Val: Cake Topper Success!

So, since my wedding is in just two weeks, there have been tons of DIY craft projects flying around my house (in the case of tissue flowers, quite literally). I just found my camera, and got batteries and the computer cord for it so I'll hopefully be posting about several more of these in the coming weeks.

For today though, our cake toppers!

I started with a lump of Paperclay, which is made mainly out of volcanic ash and so dries fairly lightweight. 8oz was enough to make both toppers, which ended up about 6 and 7 inches tall.
This was the first time I'd worked with Paperclay. It was slightly more frustrating to make minor adjustments than clay from my past ceramics class, but not too bad overall. I found that the key was to keep it wet enough.


(thank you, Thing)

I didn't have my camera so I don't have "in the making" shots. Instead, I'll get straight to the good stuff! A warning, we are giant nerds.

Ta da!



I worked on Jedi Mike first, since his basic shape was a lot easier. There weren't any major problems putting him together, but it is really difficult to get a dowel into a lump of clay straight without ruining the form. It actually sticks up a tiny bit on the side of his neck, but only I'd notice
.

Mugshots!

Making Jedi Val was a lot harder, since I'm a lot more curvy. I tried to break it down into basic shapes and then piece them back together. I was really glad no one was looking over my shoulder while I was shaping her though, she looked pretty awful for a while. Hips are really hard to get even! She took about twice as long to do as Jedi Mike. I also put her on her dowel earlier in the process than Jedi Mike, which had benefits and drawbacks. The benefit was that she was a lot easier to hold and shape, the drawback was that she kept sliding down and trying to take off her own head. Kind of sad, but she ended up with a "scar" in the same place on her neck where mine is, which I found endlessly amusing.




One of the great things about Paperclay is that it dries hard in 24 hours, and after that is easily sandable. This helped me get rid of a hunchback on Jedi Val (whoops!). I used a 220 grit sand paper because it was what I had lying around, and it wasn't too harsh.

I'm hoping we'll get pro pictures of these at the wedding, so I can share better pictures eventually.

This is something I can do again, but very likely won't for a while. It was a good 8-10 hours of work, all told.

Tell me what you think!