Working the leftovers!

Finally cleaned up my brushes today and separated my findings from the ribbons in the craft cupboard. Later, I was debating on the viability of some of the one year old clay in the claybox. It looked like some were still usable - like Grace and Hearty (which I liberally mummified with tape and more tape a year ago) and such - though what was left of the lump of Cosmos hardened even within its packaging.

 

 

 

Pulled out one of the older ochre Grace clay stick to mix. There was no mixing chart for Grace on the new Padico clayscale I got from BFJ (http://www.bestfromjapan.com/moreinfo.cfm/users/mylist.cfm?product_id=867&actioncode=add) so I just went along with a rough gauge. (Makes me all more determined to get a set of Modena colours just to play - but I do have to finish up all the year-old clay first). Love the pick that comes with the new version - it has a sharp tip and a flattened end; extremely useful!

 

 

 

The menu this evening was anything small and baked and a batch of macarons. What more could you ask out of year old clay! These should be dry overnight in cool air-conditioning for coloring tomorrow.

 

Decided to try the clay release master from Tamiya on my molds - you can just use baby oil on a budget. There is no marked difference except you get a bonus facial on your fingers since you would be getting baby oil on your skin. The Tamiya version comes in a nail polish sized bottle with its own brush. One small difference was the longer time the oil stayed in the mold. With the Padico and brandless ones,  the oils dry up quickly. This retails locally for $6 a piece. If your local Tamiya supplier do not have this, visit Stargex at Paya Lebar if you're in Singapore and you should be able to find lots of products from the Tamiya Decoration Series as well as this item at the store.

 

Since my workspace has shrunk to half a table after some living arrangement changes, I have swapped to using a mini standing magnifying glass instead. But its still tiring to look at small stuff when it gets later into the night. I'm still trying to work on my scales (though most of the time, it ended up being a "feeling" thing aka it does not feel right). Maybe it's time to find a niche area that does not demand too much of scaling ._.

 

Liquid Sukerukun and Coating Donuts

Guess what the postman brought today from A-Smart Shop. Texture sheets, two bottles of mold putty, liquid sukerukun and the A&B epoxy.

The first thing I opened was the liquid sukerukun. On it the Japanese label reads "Liquid Sukerukun" and "Water-Soluble". Behind is a wall of text about how it dries to a transparent/lucent finish etc etc. The inside of the whole bottle smelt suspiciously like white glue and behaved it like too.

Did I just pay like more than $10USD for a bottle of white glue? It sure does look like it. But the shop classified it under Air-Dry Clay. I dragged a couple of unmixed sukeru-liquid over a test piece of cookie. It dried and looked like a strip of transparent dried glue. The next thing I did was to mix acrylic paint into some of the liquid - about a small spoonful of Americana's French Vanilla.

It was very liquid-y at first, really like white glue. After exposure to air, it started gaining a bit more texture and form, and felt heavier to work with. But it does not lose its ''creaminess" and dry up like air-dry clay mixed with water.

Which is a horror to work with each time. I have to keep all my frosting trays well-watered and stashed away in plastic bags else it is back to square one to soak and wetten them. Maybe this Suke-ru-liquid thing is the solution to air-dry clay frosting, then again the liquid is not cheap. I ended up using my experiment to glaze some donuts. So now I have a black and white donut collection :

A New Toy and Bazaar Stuff

Eversince I got the Padico Color Chart and Clayscale, I wanted to try it bad -- so since weekend is clay crafting weekend and produce buying, so I headed over to LC and got the set of Grace Colored Clay just specially for this. So, good-bye to paint-stained hands for a bit.

I am done with the cookie (magnet) bars for the March bazaar. Just wondering if they would hold out on the colors before March. No profits will be made though, I'll be donating these and the rest of the fruit tart magnets as well to charity. (That should get me some good karma for this year! tee-hee)

The bar is 5cm in length, the cookies are roughly 2cm in width, probably on a 1:6 scale. Three sit on a painted balsa wood bar which is also varnished - so you don't have to worry about wood rot!

The strip magnet has adhesive on it already. It was cut from a larger piece using scissors. All the bars have strip magnets. I'm definitely thinking I need to put a warning on these that they aren't too strong magnets and shouldn't be used to pinning up too heavy a piece of paper. The fruit tartlet ones should be having the stronger magnets once I get them next week.

Bagged and packed!

For the Mold Enthusiast - Floree Japan

Although clay molds are perhaps seen as a naughty short-cut in the crafting community, I do like my molds if there's a need to do mass-crafting. Molds are like time-savers to air-dry clay users, like canes are to polymer clay users I guess! :D

Since I am not a fan of mixing sillcones to do my own molds, I would try to get the air dry clay / deco craft molds made by Floree Japan, which sadly has become the objects of boot-legging by many Etsy sellers (Some of whom I have mistakenly bought from.)

If you search Etsy's with the term 'clay mold', you'll get an array of blue-silicon copycat molds, fake Floree molds priced anywhere from $5 to $10 USD and the real Floree molds. So far, I have found only two sellers on Etsy selling the real thing which they priced at $15-$19+ USD, the former shipping these molds directly from Japan itself. You can also go through a commission seller to purchase your molds off Floree's Yahoo-auction website and have them shipped to you. Floree molds cost 980 yen per mold (around 10USD), and sometimes there is special discounts. I got my first two Florees from Tokyu Hands in Shibuya, Japan last year.

The fake ones are labelled "f-style" on the side and do not have Floree's distinctive watermark behind, which bears the mold's name and the website. The boot-leg ones are not sanded properly on the side, resulting in a lop-sided mold that cannot lie flat. Also, the inside of the molds are not shiny and smooth so clay takes a while to be removed from it. These probably go for like half the price of a real Floree mold.

Real Floree molds are made either from hard white silicon or black silicon. There's no difference between the two except you see stains on the white mold instead. The black will stain too, just that you can't see it. The front of each mold is stamped with the word 'floree'. Each mold has a distinctive watermark behind, like a company logo-thing - bearing the mold's name and Floree's website. The inside of the molds are smooth and shiny, clay comes out easily with these molds.

You can visit Floree's website to look at their products :

http://www.floree.jp/ - Main website, home
http://www.floree.jp/web1/ - Product Overview, first tab on the side-bar
http://store.shopping.yahoo.co.jp/floree/index.html - Floree's Yahoo Shopping Store, this is where you go if you want to buy molds and crafting materials, second tab
http://www.floree.jp/Les/ - Video Lessons on how to use Floree Molds to make deco and miniatures, third tab
http://www.floree.jp/gallery/index.html - Photograph Gallery of Products, fourth tab
http://ameblo.jp/floree/ - Floree Store Blog, fifth tab
http://www.floree.jp/kyoushi/index.html - Contact Lists, Japan only, sixth tab

Floree's website is very exciting to visit, do take a look when you are free. :)

Note : I am not putting up pictures of the molds that I have purchased but I would be glad to tell you who are the sellers for non-bootleg or bootleg Floree's  if you are interested in buying.

Another Store to get your supplies

 Despite the doubts floating about the crafting community (which I am a very quiet lurker) about it being tough to obtain Hearty Soft or Modena Clay, this shop on the second level of Liang Court River Valley, near to the Okonomiyaki restaurant has generous stocks of Japanese and Korean-import clay. I bought 2 bags of Grace Clay for $19.30 each, $3-$4 more expensive than what I would had purchased in Tokyu Hands for; but minus shipping costs and such, sweet deal. They also have a couple of rare clays like Silk or Angel; and they stock a large variety of cream sillicones and sauce-clays for sweets deco or food miniature making.

Apart from clay, this shop also sells cutters, molds and every other thing you would need for a clay craft hobby. However, beware their white sillicone molds are $30.00 each! Hefty price for something I paid 980 yen for. I kind of chuckled when I saw the price and decided not to burn my money into that one. Cutters are expensive too. I'll stick to my straws.

Here is the store's website : http://www.craft-it-yourself.com/about_us.html

Deco Sweets Whip Cream Clay

The shop Beadtles in Plaza Singapura stocks a small quantity of Deco Sweets Whip Cream Clay if you are thinking of purchasing some from the net and do not have a credit card handy for any e-bay or paypal purchases. They go for around $15-17 per tube; almost the same as what you would pay for in yen in craftstores in Japan.Have fun shopping!