Christmas Nibbles! (in 1/12th scale)

I felt like making some more polymer clay food the other day. It's odd, I find it incredibly relaxing!

Every Christmas we make up a selection of 'nibbles' to have as a kind of starter before we get the turkey and trimmings sorted out. They're usually small and light snacky things and my favourite is always these - cherry tomatoes with pesto and mozzerella on cocktail sticks. Here's the ones I made up a couple of years ago...

NOM!

 ...and the fimo version from the other day...

 

 The pesto is simply some green 'scenic scatter' for dioramas mixed with some clear nail varnish and a little drop of Games Workshop paint wash to give it a little more colour. The cocktail sticks are actually very very fine wire, painted afterwards. Annoyingly they make them look more like little stuffed chillies but oh well!

One thing that my parents love to get every year is Stollen. I'm not a big fan because I don't really like dried fruit (which explains why I don't like fruit cake, christmas cake, christmas pudding or indeed, mince pies!) but I love the smell and the look of the thing so I couldn't resist trying to make one for my little people who don't have such picky appetites!

It's all fimo - the 'fruit' was baked prior to the actual loaf being made and then glossed with clear varnish to give it that lovely moist look. I mixed lots of other bits into the 'dough' of the loaf but they didn't really show up afterwards which was a bit disappointing so I ended up just shoving these ones in afterwards, texturing the surface, colouring it all with pastels and some thinned down paint and then baking. The sugar effect was created with a combination of oil, baking powder and pastel dust. I have no idea if it'll stand the test of time but it looks brilliant in photos so I'm happy. :P

Bokeh ftw!

As I mentioned before, two of the other things I don't actually like are christmas cake and mince pies...



These photos are terrible but in reality that icing looks AMAZING! The cake texture itself is awful though; I wish I'd spent more time on it before I baked it. :/

The mince pies worked out really well though and I probably would eat one if they weren't so small...

Now, onto things that I really want to make in real life!



White chocolate and cranberry cookies! I've got a recipe for these somewhere so I might see if I could attempt to make them sometime in the new year because they're just so damn tasty!



Same process as the Stollen with all the ready-made fruit/chocolate chips mixed in and I sprinkled some pastel dust over them before baking to simulate cinnamon.

Seeing as I didn't really like the christmas cake, I thought I'd go for something that I was sure to like instead - CHOCOLATE!






You can never go wrong with chocolate cake, let's be honest. ;)

So yeah, that's what I've been doing, well, I was going to say 'this week' but I actually made all that on the same day so it doesn't really count, lol. I have a rather exciting project starting at college that I can't wait to get started on but you'll have to wait a little longer to find out what as I need to do rather a lot of planning before I can actually do any making which is a pain but hey-ho.

Anyway, if I don't get the chance on the day I wish you all a very merry christmas/cake-nomming day and all the best for 2013! :D


EG out!

Still hungry?

Because I made some more miniature food!
Technically I made them weeks ago but I procrastinate so much I...yeah, you get the gist, I'm useless.
Anyway! Photos!

First up is my favourite, the Hawaiian/ham and pineapple pizza. :D This is one of my favourite real pizzas to eat so it was perhaps inevitable that I should end up making one for my mini people.







I've got a tutorial on deviantART, here -link-

This one's a lot smaller, with more mozzarella and herby stuff.





Weirdly I get a lot of memories associating themselves with this because I made it when I was choked up in bed with the 'flu and ended up watching a whole host of terrible 'documentaries' about history and myths and legends. This one was made during the tail end of one on the Holy Grail and the start of another to do with how the ancient Egyptians apparently used the pyramids as giant crystal batteries.



Indeed.

I also tried to give it a stuffed crust but I think I made the base too thick for it to look right.





Don't like anything too fancy? That's ok, there's a Margherita on the menu too!









Not in the mood for pizza? What about a nice rustic loaf? Perhaps something with cheese and onion baked into it?













Hmm...too healthy for you?
Fine, a fish supper it is!











...and what could be a better end to the meal than a batch of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies?!







Ah, yes, a batch of equally freshly baked shortbread!







 Full yet? XP


 I've got some more things to upload after this lot but I think they deserve their own post so for now, EG out!

Anyone hungry?

I've been doing some cooking!













 







But only in 1/12th scale. :P









The other day, whilst I was still choked up with the cold, I decided to make some doll's house food. No idea why, I had no real need for it but after having had a really rather delicious bacon roll that morning I knew exactly what I wanted to recreate in miniature.

Prior to this I'd only ever made a couple of really basic food items when I was a kid so I shocked myself by how well they turned out! I didn't have a phenomenally good selection of fimo either so this was made mostly from plain flesh coloured super sculpey, a touch of ochre and dark brown fimo and a lot of pastel dust. I mixed in some very fine sand too which gave it a lovely texture.

I meant to take loads of photos as I went along but as my fingers ended up covered in clay and pastels, I ended up taking very few.

This for example shows the evolution of the pizza.

Here's the dough...



...Here's the fine sand being mixed into it...



...the base being pastelled...



...and...oh.

Finished. XD



 I can't remember what went into all the toppings but the green bits were scenic scatter (for dioramas!) and the cheese and tomato sauce were, I think, paint mixed with liquid fimo. (which sets INSANELY fast, to my initial horror) I have a feeling I mixed in some nail varnish as well but don't quote me on that! I definitely used it at the end of that layer though as it gave it a lovely shine.

I'd really like to make some more pizzas (I don't even like pepperoni, what gives?!) so next time I'll be sure to do a proper walkthrough!

I used -this- tutorial for the pizza, -this- for the baguettes (both with a lot of tweaking as I didn't have everything in the tutorial) but the morning rolls, which ironically were the first thing I made, I came up with  myself.

After mixing up a nice light coloured clay, I mixed in some fine sand and rolled it over a piece of sandpaper to give it texture before forming it into a vaguely roll-shaped lump. After lightly pressing it onto the sandpaper, I used the end of a broken wooden coffee stirrer to drag three of the sides down, replicating the 'tears' that are made when each roll is separated from the rest of the batch.



I went over it for half a minute with the heatgun to set its shape before adding in the colours with pastels. It was mostly guesswork as to what colours I used but I went from light to dark with a light dusting of white prior to the final blast of heat to simulate flour.



I baked everything in this lot with a handheld heat gun rather than in the oven - more out of laziness than anything else  (going downstairs to the kitchen is just so much effort! XD) but it allowed me a lot more freedom when it came to making things and as they were so small, it only took a couple of minutes to cure each item. It also helpfully set the pastel into the clay so there was no need to go over anything with a sealant!


I was so tempted to just leave these as they were but I felt they needed a filling.



You'll notice that pretty much everything appears to have been filled with a strange looking ham salad. It's not a lack of imagination but one of practicality as I was VERY limited in my fimo colours and until I restocked this week, I didn't have very much to work with at all!

The ham I made up from scrap clay and baked just enough that it retained some flexibility so when I 'carved' it, it curled naturally. It crumbled really nicely too which made it perfect for sprinkling over things.




These burgers really didn't turn out all that well. I didn't have any really dark fimo so I mixed some acrylic paint in with the clay. The burgers themselves aren't bad but the bun, oh god, the bun.



This wrap was a bit of an experiment too and one which really didn't work all that well.



I haven't got photos yet but I also made some Japanese dishes including some chicken katsu curry, miso soup and a noodle dish!

I got some more fimo this week so I'll probably be making some more nibbles soon.
Sushi will DEFINITELY be on the agenda but any other suggestions I'll take on board. :D

EG out!