Thank you gift

Today marks the dateline of my master thesis submission, and thankfully I made it before time! Together with my thesis I handed my supervisor a specially made thank you gift - a DIY decorated jewelry box (or for any other storage purpose if you like). This idea is obtained and adapted from a Russian (I supposed) artisan, link here. The whole project took me two weekends; and the process of  making and pasting the pebbles were the killer! No joke!

From the front. The box opens from he right and thus my door
knob was on the right; yeah I could have done it the other way...
Written on the golden banner was my supervisor's name, censored :P

Open up the box and Ta-Da! A ginger cat with my signature at the corner.

Viewing from the side. The sides were sealed with wooden-patterned
adhesion tape.

Do you remember what drove me into clay? Yes I was inspired when I needed to get a gift for my ex-supervisor; and now, I am doing it again for my supervisor two years later :) Sincerely hope they liked them.

Animals for sale

Introducing.... M! M is a bitchy sweet cat owned by my elder sister. And since my sister suggested to sculpt a "M" for her so she could put it on her office table, I made my very first attempt to try sculpting a real cat (instead of some cute cartoony animals). Not alike but still cute! 

The cat. 

Next up, my friend Laura requested an elephant sculpted for her; so this is what I made for her... I really hope she likes this! An improvement from the previous cat, hmm!

Elephant sculpting. [reserved]

In memory. . .

Our beloved hamster, Kirby, had left us early in the morning at 5.18 am, March 5 this year. We still miss him, and we would like to tell the world that Kirby was one of its kind, my best hamster so far with its cute personality and love for us.

His favourite spot.

The picture of him sleeping in its favourite corner is one of the cutest pictures my boyfriend loves about. And we all know that he is happy over the rainbow bridge now. (': I made two little figurines for my boyfriend - he loves him more than me..!

The usual sneaky and greedy hamster :P

My boyfriend then made another one standing (below). Well, he was kinda good considering that he was a total beginner to clay (first time touching these clays)... And I did some final touch-ups for Kirby before he felt really happy and obsessed with his new mini-boy.

Standing Kirby.

So why am I into clay...

That sounds a little wrong. Me? A vet..? Into such things where I was never good at (arts)?! Hah! How did it begin? Well.. Well... All because of a souvenir! That's right, a souvenir for my supervisor cum lecturer who gave me too much of guidance and help throughout my final year. (: 

I didn't know what to give, and giving some standard souvenir will look lame and somehow cheap... So I asked my sisters, and then Googled a little and found out that I might be able to do some figurines for him!

A prototype made from Play-Doh. The colours faded after 2
weeks so I decided not to embarrass myself with it. 

Not only because the colours faded like ewww... I also disliked the acrylic sealant effect, my pigs looked like they soaked themselves in oil or something. Yuck.

La la la... Still the first one looks better with a brightly coloured mushroom. The fact was that I didn't want to make all the pigs to be appraising a funny mushroom... Haha. So I made them again but on a flat greeny land, and scattered the roses around. Now they look more like enjoying in a park rather than wondering what a mushroom really is, eh? (But it does look a little duller.. Hmm...)

The real deal! Three piglets sitting together on a grass land. TQ to my lecturer!

That's it. That's how I started my hobby. Strange enough to pick this up at this age. Maybe I am just too free at home after graduation...

Pusheen the cat

I'm sure most of us know what Pusheen is thanks to Facebook stickers. So my friends spontaneously suggested that I should make a Pusheen cat from clay.

Pusheen: meow!

Tutorial here.

(Psst, I am still learning from tutorials, simply because I'm still a newbie! Need more practice...)

*struggles*

Though happy with my new clay haul the day before, I found it very difficult to play with the real polymer clay! The Kato Polyclay is extremely hard to knead with fingers and I ended up using a hammer. My first attempt was to make a cute little dinosaur polymer clay charm like here. But l gave up finally... And made a Play-Doh version of a kawaii dino instead!

First and failure.

So I know from here that I have not been conditioning my clay well. And that these clays are really, really hard to condition. (T_T) More effort next time!

Happy birthday!

Little giraffe is on a secret mission. He needed to dedicate this slice of cake to a friend of mine, wishing her a happy birthday! Also to all the birthday girls/boys out there :)

(Giraffe tutorial by Inspees)

Done so far...

5 cuties and a macaroon!

A pikachu! I know, ugly!

First pikachu... Hmm.

Mini-animals update

Had some fun modelling the Play-Doh into some cute animals these few days. My little sister made a duckling (which supposed to be a chick anyway), while I made a cute Patrick dog and an Easter baby chick. We  then sprayed the creations with acrylic sealant to protect from deterioration.

Links to tutorial: Patrick dog; Easter baby chick