Gift of Heart Part II: Clay Work

When shopping for Christmas gift at 1U, I found a very special shop. A shop which sell polymer clay, which you can shape it into anything you like and bake it to create a clay figurine. I wanted to ask them to make one for me instead, but they claim it would require one week of waiting time. Since I am going to Chiang Mai soon, might as well I buy the material and make it myself. Besides, it looks like really fun. I think I like Plastisin very much when I was small, besides LEGO of course.

I got about 6 pieces of clays of different colours in a pack for around RM 25, then a bigger piece of black and white colour clay for RM 10 each. They even sell clay which turn into rubber after bake (suitable as gift for kids). Wynn told me later that there are much cheaper white clay available, which can be made into coloured clay using some colouring.


I missed the Christmas deadline and drag the completion of this gift until several weeks ago. I decide to use this to make a panda figurine for Miss Evil, since she likes panda very much. Tare Panda seems to be the cutest panda around, so I might as will make that. I Google around for images of Tare Panda as my references.

Making this gift is really fun, maybe because I do like clay work. First I make a pillow with some pattern on it. Then came the head, which is extremely difficult due to the eyes (hard to make them look cute). Then came the round body, followed by ears, hands and legs. I add a cape and hat for Tare to make him look even cuter. This is my design, with references from existing Tare Panda product out there of course.




There are many small pieces of leftover clay, and I still feel like making more stuff. I used them to make a mini tree, a mushroom, a cake and a candy bar. These small little things are really cute; I think I had fallen in love with clay work.


I ask my mom to bake it in the oven, and she complains it is wastage of gas since the figurine is so small compared to the big oven. She put them into a steel pot and heats it up instead. For a figurine of 2-3 inches thick, 20-30 minutes should be just nice.

These clay figurines fit perfectly into the gift box I bought earlier. I put some soft paper in to fill up the spaces, make it look nicer and for a bit of cover up effect. Put the box into a small carry bag and it is ready to go.






PS: Since Valentine day is around the corner, does anyone wanna order some handmade valentine gift from me?