Pattern for Making Character Pens

Preparing the Pens:

The reason for the use of the Papermate Flexgrip Ultra Ball Point Pens is because you can unscrew the bottom silver part of the pen and remove the ink cartridge, which you will need to do to bake the polymer clay onto the empty pen cartridge. You will be working with two pens; one you will be making into a character pen and the other one will be used as a rolling pin.

Using the Character Face Mold or other commercial face mold:

Roll up a piece of the flesh-colored polymer clay into a smooth ball, about the size of the push mold cavity, and roll one end of the ball into a cone shape. Put the tip of the cone into the nose cavity of the push mold. Holding the clay as steady as possible, push the clay straight into the push mold and fill to capacity. Using another piece of flesh-colored polymer clay, push the clay onto the clay inside the push mold. This will act as a handle and help you to remove the character face. Using a toothpick, poke nostrils into the nose area. Put aside your character face.

Covering the Pen Cartridge:

Following the pictures included in this free website, roll out a very thin (1/16th inch) pancake of clay, using your second pen as a rolling pin to smooth out the clay, and cover the outside of the pen. You can use a marble effect, or stripes; be creative.

For purposes of explanation, I will explain the project using the Santa above. Roll out the 1/16th inch pancake of red clay. Using your x-acto knife, and your pen to measure, cut a rectangle of clay approximately 1.5 inches wide and the length of the pen barrel. Wrap the red clay rectangle around the pen barrel and cut away any excess clay. If you are "short" in any areas, you can "patch" a little clay onto the area and smooth with your fingers until the creases and lines disappear.

Creating the Pen Head:

Attach the Santa Face to the top of the pen. It will stick to the red clay already on the pen. Roll up another small flesh-colored clay ball, about 1/2 inch in diameter. Push your finger into one side of the ball, creating a conclave identation. Put this ball onto the back of the pen to create a "back of Santa's head". It doesn't have to be perfect. It will be covered with Santa's hair. Using your smoothing tool or your finger, you can smooth the sides of the head to make sure it is attached firmly. Remember the heads will be covered with hair and sometimes with hats.

Making Santa's Hat

For Santa's hat, as well as the Wizard's hat, you take a 2 inch diameter ball of red clay and roll into a cone shape. Poke and smooth a hold in the thick side of the cone to create an opening to fit the head into. Smooth the edges/rim of the hat and make sure it is an even rim.

Safety Instruction: Any tool, plate, dish, spoon, or other tool used with polymer clay can no longer be used in food service. For example: If you use the garlic press to make Santa's hair in the next step, you can no longer use it to press garlic. You will need to get a new one to use with food. Your first garlic press will automatically become a member of your clay tool set. If you use a dish or pan to bake the clay figures in, they are no longer suitable for food service. A good substitute is the ceramic tile or even a tin inexpensive pie plate.

Using the garlic press or a piece of screening, take white clay, roll it into a thick ball, and press or push it through the press or the screen. It will produce the tiny, tiny strands of hair. Attach one clump of white clay hair at a time to creat the hair and beard. To create the mustache, you will need to remove one strand and lay between the nose and mouth.

To make the fur on Santa's hat, you will put the white clay through the press or screen and only use short clumps of the strands. Attach them to the rim of the hat and the tip fo the hat until you have a nice layer of fur.

You can take two tiny brown peas of clay or white peas of clay and make small think circles and attach as buttons. A cocktail straw is a good tool to use for this. But you can make them without the straw too. Be sure to poke two sew marks through the buttons. Details count!

You will be baking the hat and pen separately and gluing them when completed.

To make the Pen Base/Holder

Look at the picture of the Santa pen and roll up a large ball of clay about the size of the pen base. This is a good project for any left over scraps of clay from other projects. To use the left over clay, roll up a ball of multi-colored clay about the size of the pen base. Then roll out the red clay and make a very large, thin pancacke out of it. Cover the mound of multi-colored clay and smooth down the sides. Cover the bottom if you have enough clay, although it's not necessary.

Uisng your spare rolling pin pen, push the pen into the top of the base/hold and wiggle just a little bit and remove the pen. You have now made the cavity that will hold the pen when completed.

Roll out a long white coil of clay and another long red coil of clay. Twist together to get the candy-cane effect. Wrap around the bottom of the pend base/holder and cut off any excess. You can add a small candy cane to the front of the base, using the same twisting method.

Bake the polymer clay pen, hat and base according to the polymer clay manufacturer's baking instructions. Be careful to properly time your baking. It is crucial that you set a timer.

Safety Precaution: Children should be supervised while baking polymer clay. Although it is a very safe product, if you overbake polymer clay, it will release toxic fumes. It is critically important that you set a timer when baking polymer clay so you do not overbake and release the toxic fumes.

Painting the Character Pen Faces:

1. Paint the eyes a yellowish/greyish white. Paint iris circles in blue or brown. Paint tiny black pupils and add a pin dot of white paint at 2:00 on the outside circumference of the pupil to finish the eyes.

2. Paint think wispy lines to create eyebrows.

3. Add red and brown and a little white paint together. Mix until you have a flesh-colored brownish pink. You don't want a lipstick pink; you want a lip-color pink. It helps to water down the paint mixture a little bit. It goes on more like a lip color rather than a lipstick.

4. Once the faces are dry, the pens are completed.

Other Tips on the Characters:

For the Pink Fairy Pen, you can bake the doll bald and when cool, glue a little acrylic doll hair instead of making the hair out of clay. (Do not bake the acrylic hair) Her eaars are made by taking tiny balls of flesh-colored clay and shaping them into fairy ears. They are baked separately and glued on after the hair is applied.

For the Nun and Mary Pen, the veils are made by rolling out large rectangles of 1/16th clay and cutting a straight edge on one long end. Drape te rectangle onto the top of the head and create folds and cut off the bottom into a pleasing shape. This technique can be used to make a Woman in Burka pen too.

For the St. Patrick's Day pen, you can create the hat by using the picture as a guide. The hat is baked separately from the pen. The hat and the acrylic hair are glued onto the head after baking.

Bas Relief Bracelet

Supplies:

Making the Clay Face:

Using your Character Face Push Mold, push out a face. Slice off part of the back of the face and a small part of the side of the face. You want the face to look to the side, not straight forward. Place the uncured face off to the side and prepare the bracelet base.

Preparing the Bracelet Base:

You will need two measurements: The first measurement you need is the circumference of your wrist, plus one inch (or an additional 1/2 inch or so if you want more of a *bangle*); and the second measurement is the thickness of your wrist (how large of an opening would you need to squeeze the bracelet on)

Using your clay-dedicated pasta machine or your clay-dedicated rolling pin, roll out about a 1/8 thickness of clay. Neatly cut out the rectangle the size of your first measurement. Cut out a slightly smaller piece of flexible screening and lay this on top of your rectangle of clay.

Cut out another rectangle of clay the same size as the first, but cut out a circle to embed your character face into. Lay this second rectangle on top of your first and smooth the edges to permanently attach.

Using your clay gun, extrude several long coils of clay and twirl two together and twist. Attach this element around the circumference of the bracelet. Blend the clay along the edges to firmly secure one to the other.

Adding the Faux Bas Relief Elements:

Using your clay gun, extrude thin spaghetti coils of clay in a blonde or brunette color. Using the reference picture above, drape the hair along the entire bracelet as shown. If you do not have a clay gun, simply roll out many long thin coils of clay and drape one at a time until you get a pleasing arrangement. Using your jewelry push mold, push out several small leaves and add along the bracelet in between the hair strands.

You can also use the back of bead-topped pin to push in holes along the bracelet and you can glue in faux pearls when you are done curing the bracelet. There are no pearls in the above-bracelet, but when you begin to design your own bas relief bracelet, brooch and necklace designs, you can add jewels and pearls to them as well.

Preparing the Bracelet for Curing:

Once you are happy with the final design, either stand the bracelet up and wrap into shape, or wrap a piece of cardboard into the shape of the bracelet and wrap the bracelet around that. Either way, you will want to make sure your bracelet is secure enough to take the heat from the curing. Depending upon what type of polymer clay you have used, follow the manufacturers directions for curing the bracelet. ALWAYS USE A TIMER WHEN CURING POLYMER CLAY!

Painting your Character Face:

Using your acrylic paints, paint the eyes white and allow to dry. Paint irises blue or brown. If you are nervous about getting them even, you can lightly pencil in the irises so you have a line to follow. Make sure you paint over the lines. Paint a smaller black pupil. You can add a tiny *catch light* in the eye by putting a tiny, tiny white dot of paint on the intersection of the pupil and the iris at the 2:00 position. Paint the lips a reddis-brown. If you have a steady hand, you can outline your eyes with a tiny liner brush in black, but if you do not have a steady hand, this is really not necessary.

The Finishing Touch

Once your bracelet is fully dry, you can spray the entire bracelet with an acrylic matte or glossy spray finish. For added strength, you can also coat your bracelet with a porcelain coating used in the silk flower industry that is used to harden flowers. You paint it on, it is a little pinkish when painted on, but dries clear and very hard.

You're done!

Copyright by Regina Edmonds - 2000

Pompano Beach, Florida

fairy111@bellsouth.net

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Thanks and I hope you have been inspired by the pattern to make Character Pens.