Clay Santos

Hi friends, happy Thursday!  This is turning into another off-schedule week for me.  Oh, well, what's a blogger to do?  I'm looking forward to sharing this with you today.  It was a collision of several things that got me going on this project.

I really like cage Santoses and mine appears occasionally on this blog.   Then, I saw a really compelling Pin and, um, Pinned it.  Next, Kathy, over at Creative Home Expressions did a Santos Pottery Barn Christmas ornament giveaway.  She did not select me as winner--I guess that had something to do with the whole random thing.  So, I took matters into my own hands (ha, literally!).

I finally broke down and purchased some polymer clay (the baking kind) from Walmart and got a pretty big brick for about $6.  We had popsicle sticks.  From that point, I tried to copy Connie's work. 

Image via Artful Play blog.

For the body, I crumpled up foil and put clay around it; the neck is a wooden skewer; the arms were built over a floral wire that was threaded through the torso.  This was my first attempt making a Santos (of course), as well as, my first polymer clay project (that I recall).  I used maybe a third of the clay.  Connie's is about 5", mine is closer to 8-9".

She sat around the house like this for a good week and the Chicks referred to her as "Creepy Doll."  She looks a lot less smooth than Connie's version.  I did try to sand her, but the 150 wasn't doing the trick and there was bug on the coarsest sandpaper outside, so there was too much of an "Ew" factor.   For "feathers," I pressed a toothpick into the clay and they painted with streaks of ivory and gray paint.

Her crown is my daughter's ring.  She was reluctant to loan it to me for the photo shoot, so I snooped through her messy looked in her room and "borrowed" it while she was at school.  This photo is of her "bad side," she fell over while baking, so has a dent in her cheek.  (Shh, she's rather sensitive about her deformity.)

She was actually easier to make that I ever would have anticipated.   She may benefit from a coat of glaze over her, since her skin is a bit bright--I'm not sure--I may leave well enough, alone.  In case you're wondering, I hot glued her wings to her back (I wasn't sure if one could even use hot glue on clay, I guess one can!)