Introduction: Comic Character Clay Bead Necklace (with Homemade Clay)
If you like this please vote for it in the comic contest :)
Step 1: Gathering Materials
For making the clay, you will need:
4 cups whte flour
1 cup salt
1.5 cups water
Food coloring (optional if you have paint)
The other materials you will need:
Paint and paintbrush (highly recommended but you can make this project without it)
Toothpicks
Sandpaper
Needle
Small scissors
String or yarn
Lacquer (or clear nail polish)
Pictures of the characters you will put on your necklace
Step 2: Making the Clay
Then to color the clay, you just break off the amount or clay you need and drop some food coloring in it and then knead it until the color is blended in.
Use gloves when tinting the clay or your hands will get stained like mine did
Step 3: Making the Basic Shape of the Characters
Step 4: Adding the Details
In this step you simply add the smaller details. Eyes, beaks, noses, mouths, etc, are added to make the character. Remember: think shapes. Oval nose, round eyes, etc. Some parts need more detail such as garfields eyes and mouth. The mouth has its unique shape that you need to look at the picture to obtain. His eyes have eyelids on top, so you can make oval white eyes and put a thin layer of orange over them to make the eyelids. You may need to divide the head up into shapes kinda like I did with Odie's head in the last step
If you have paint, do not try to make the darker colors with food coloring such as black. Its easier just to paint it, since you won't be able to achieve a real black color anyways.
At this point you should preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
Using a toothpick, poke a hole through each character (for the string) and make it a big hole.
Step 5: Bake and Make Smaller Beads
Put the characters you made on a baking sheet and put in the oven thats preheated to 300 degrees.
This is the tedious part: Every 5 - 10 minutes or so you need to get the pieces out and poke holes through them again. The shapes get baked inside and you wont be able to get the string through if you don't do this. Trust me, I learned this the hard way! ALSO, the shapes are VERY hot and you will need to handle them with an oven mitt or towel.
While the shapes are baking, make little donut shaped beads of different colors. Make the holes really big. You will need lots of these, around 35 or so. You will need to bake these for around 15-20 minutes so add them to the characters in the oven after they have been in there for about 40 minutes.
If you are making the instructables robot, you will need to make two red littledonut beads as well to put on both sides of the robot.
You will need to bake the characters for about an hour. Flip them over after about half an hour. After an hour has passed, try squishing the biggest character you have (with an oven mitt of course!) and if it still squishes in then leave it in for longer. If it is hard you can take it out.
Step 6: Fixing Cracks and Sanding
Some shapes may not come out quite like you wanted them to, or the surface is not real smooth. This is where sand paper comes in handy. Just sand the edges or surfaces that need to be smoothed and your shape will look much better.
Step 7: Painting
Then just take a paint brush and paint all the parts you feel need more vibrant or smooth color. Paint the eyes in on all the characters. Let the characters dry completely before going on to the next step.
Note: I used permanent marker at first on this step, but then when I put lacquer on it, the marker smudged and it looked really bad. So I had to re-do some of the shapes, re-paint others. Lesson learned: Do not use permanent marker if you want to put lacquer on it!
Step 8: Coating With Lacquer
To coat beads with lacquer you will need to put them on a rag or piece of cardstock and go either into the garage or outside. Follow the directions on the can, but basically you will need to shake it and then spray it on with about two coats. Then wait about an hour and flip over the beads and repeat. You may need to do this more than twice to completely coat the beads and make them shiny.
Wait for them to be completely dry before proceeding to the next step.
Step 9: Assembling the Necklace
*remember to put the red beads on sides of the instructables robot*
After you are done with that cut off the extra string and tie another big knot.
Now take some thicker string or yarn and tie it to each end, while measuring to make sure it fits the head of whomever it’s meant for.
Step 10: Adding Little Rings to the String
I did this on both sides of the necklace to add a cute finish to the necklace!