Fun Times with Clay!

I think Scupley clay is really cool, and there's a bunch of neato items on the web made with Scupley and Fimo.  Like this:

I bought this micro-bus for my BF last Xmas from Jennifer of "IttyBittiesForYou" on Etsy.  More pics of this super tiny piece of coolness can be found on the HitopBus Blog.  Jennifer is an amazing artist, and right now, she will turn your puppy (or kitty) into a SuperHero.  Check her out, her work will awe you and make you smile.  I wanna know if she can turn my Bender Oak into a villian. A Sock Thief.

Well, I wanted to try my hand at Sculpey, and, well, I'm not awesome as Jennifer, and it was quite a challenge.  But fun.  You can't get angry at brightly colored dough.  Though, I came very, very close...

I wanted to make my BF a little keychain of his buses, though it is a total art making miniature items, and I have only mastered miniature in crochet, not clay.

Here's a random Tip for working with Sculpey or other clays:  If you are making a small item that required much kneading before molding it into shape, make sure you can peel it off the surface you were working on.  I destroyed the Bus logo, but used the cellophane the clay came in on my second attempt, and it peeled right off!

From Not so great with Clay

(as you can see, the one in the background is all distorted and also picked up dye from other clays)

From Not so great with Clay

Here's some frustrating, amusing, and blurry pictures of me trying to work with this fun medium:



I used hatpins stashed away in my jewelry supplies to put little loops in everything.  The hatpins are inexpensive, and you can clip them with pliers or cutters to the length you need.  Once baked, it was just a matter of placing a few jump rings and locking the jump rings onto the keychains.  Instant Ornament, Pendant, keychain, or stitchmarker!

After much kneading, cursing, and trying to explain to Bender Oak I wasn't making Candy or Food in front of the TV, here's the finished items:



In the end, I managed to create a cute little Bus keychain, a Logo keychain, and some awkward Tim Burton-esque stitch markers!  Some of these are not pratical, but very lovely.  I'm going to turn them into ornaments and decoration for wrapped gifts.  I've run out of large size jump rings, but I need to find some bigger jump rings or another method to turn these into stitchmarkers.  Any recommendations?