I forgot to put halos on the angels, and I’m debating whether to add them since their flesh color already seems to have darkened just from the 30 minutes they spent in the oven already, compared to the Santas where I used the same type and color of clay.

I’m a little disappointed with the green Pardo that I used to make the holly leaves on the Snowmen’s hats, it turned out very dark. I’m not sure if that is because they were such a very thin amount or if it’s just because they’re laid upon black hats and it’s picking up the color from the hats.

But I am happy with how the Santas turned out!

These are just preliminary “show and tell” pictures of course. I still have to loop the wires on the Santas and the Snowmen and maybe add some glaze to the Snowmen, angel wings and Santa hats to bring out the pretty colors in that mother-of-pearl Pardo, and then I’ll take the pictures that I’ll use when I post these up at my Artfire shop. Hopefully under better lighting the green holly leaves will show a little better but even with the naked eye they’re still pretty dark. Oh well, live and learn.

I purchased this from Amazon about a week and a half ago, as one of the things I am interested in trying out with polymer clay is making mini foods. Not dollhouse style mini foods, but precisely what this book is demonstrating – mini food charms. I am anxious to try my hand at this but I need to finish up some other projects first before I dive into it.

The projects in this book are extremely cute. I have my eye on the cupcake, cinnamon roll and pumpkin pie projects specifically, so when I have the chance to start working on these, one of those will be the first on my list. The authors take the reader through the general basics of what tools you’ll need for the projects, and what colors of clay they work with, even down to how much of each color to use. They also show you a couple of basic jewelry making techniques that you’ll need to know to make these items into charms – a wire wrapped loop, a double sided loop, and a figure eight loop – which in this case is actually a little longer than a typical figure eight loop, so one can push this loop into the clay charm before baking. There’s a quick blurb on bead stringing, crimping a crimp bead, stringing beads on nylon, and making stud earrings, among other things.

For the actual projects, they’re set up exactly like food recipes: a list of ingredients, with the colors and the amounts of clay you’ll need for each component, including a handy little actual-size graphic illustration – basically a colored circle that you can hold up a ball of clay in front of to gauge how much clay to use, and any tools you’ll need for that particular project. It also notes how many charms it will yield for the ingredients listed, which for most of these is one or two charms. Then there are several color pictures demonstrating from start to finish, how to create these cute little charms. And at the end of each project they offer a suggestion of how to incorporate your newly created items into a jewelry piece.

The authors have also included a few real food recipes for you to try out if you’re inclined: Old-fashioned lemonade, cinnamon rolls, and a cheddar omelet, to name a few. I think I may try out their recipe for sugar cookies for the holidays.

If you’ve ever been interested in creating little mini food charms, this would be the book to get. I’ll be sure to post the results of my attempts when I’ve had the opportunity to give it a whirl.