Santa Face Ornament Project

Supplies:

Santa Face Mold, 2 oz. flesh-colored polymer clay, 1 oz. red and green polymer clays, 2 oz. white polymer clay; miniscule amount of acrylic paint in brown, white, blue, red and black; translucent makeup powder (available at a drug store or any cosmetic counter - you might have an old makeup powder compact laying around already) set of steel wax carver tools or a steel crochet hook, or a large steel embroidery needle; glue gun; ceramic tile; Xacto craft knife; clay gun, ornament hook.

Molding Santa's Face:

1. Dust the inside of the mold with translucent powder to prevent the clay from sticking.
2. Condition the flesh-colored polymer clay by kneading until soft and pliable. Roll a large cone of clay, about the size you need to fill the facial cavity of the mold, until very smooth, and all of the crease lines are gone.
3. Push the tip of the cone into the nose section of the inside of the face mold, and continue pushing the rest of the cone of clay into the mold until it is full and flush across the top. It should be level like a level teaspoon. Do not overfill. Roll up another ball of clay and push against the clay in the mold. This will act as a clay handle and help you remove the molded clay without marring it.
4. Using a wax carver clay tool, or your crochet needle or large embroidery needle, or similar smoothing tool, smooth any creases that are in face that shouldn't be there. Do not erase Santa's eye creases.
5. You can deepen Santa's crow's feet around his eyes or change his smile or give him a little smirk. You can make each Santa just a little bit different by tweeking his face before curing. One mold can make many different faces with just a push here or a squeeze there.

Santa's Hair, Beard and Hat:

1. Condition your white clay and roll into a thin coil, slightly more narrow than the barrel of your clay gun.
2. Insert the spaghetti strings clay gun disc into the end of the clay gun, and extrude long spaghetti strings. Take groups of 5 or 6 pieces of hair and drape around Santa's face and beard area, following the picture above for placement.
3. Roll up a ball of red clay and roll out a large pancake of red clay about 1/4 inch thick. Cut out a pie-shaped triangle and place on Santa's head like a birthday hat. Take the top of the hat and drape it over onto itself to look like a stocking hat.
4. Using more of your white spaghetti strings, clump several very short pieces of strings into a pom-pom shape and place at the end of your stocking hat.
5. Roll up two long thin coils of white clay and twist and place around the edge of the stocking hat.
6. Make 3 small leaf shapes from your green polymer clay. Using the back of your X-acto knife, indent vein lines into your leaves. Add a couple of red berries to complete your ornament.

Curing the Ornament:

1. Depending upon which polymer clay you are using, bake the polymer clay ornament on your ceramic tile according to your manufacturer's instructions. Allow to fully cool.
2. If you do not have a ceramic tile, you can use a disposable pie tin that is available at any local supermarket. Be sure that you do not use any pans or utensils with food that you use with polymer clay.
3. Always use a timer when curing your polymer clay. It is a very safe product, but if you burn it, it will give off toxic fumes. So it is best to be safe and ALWAYS USE A TIMER!

Painting Santa's Face:

1. Paint the entire eye area white. You can add a little dab of yellow paint, if you have it, to remove the starkness of the whites, but it is not necessary if you do not have the yellow on hand.
2. Using blue or brown, paint a circle iris. Paint in small black pupils in the center of each eye. When dry, you can add tiny dots of white paint onto the intersection of the iris and pupil at the 2:00 position of the eye. These will be catch lights and give the ornament a little bit more character.
3. Water down white paint and add a tiny amount of black paint to create a whitish grey paint. Stroke on several whisker-like eyebrowns.
4. Water down brownish red paint until it's the consistency of ink and the color of flesh. paint on Santa's lips, being careful not to get the red on his beard. You can use a dab of this color to blush the cheeks or you can use blush makeup if you have any on hand to do the same.

Making Different Faces:

1. The magic of polymer clay is that you can mold the clay, but before curing, you can creat a different face by just tweaking the eyes a little, plumping the nose and widening the smile. The mold will create similar faces or different faces, depending upon how you want to use it.
2. If you want to make a custom santa, instead of making the twisted coils to run around the edge of the hat, you can cut out a 3/4 inch wide flat strip of white clay and after curing you can write Baby's First Christmas or Christmas 2004 and each year you can make a different one for all of the members of your family. Makes a fun, easy family keepsake.