Mini Food: A cuppa with some brownies...

I'm back again!

This one has turned out so well, I really like it. Between this one and the cookies, (http://whatsannadoingtoday.blogspot.com.au/2016/07/mini-food-baking-chocolate-chip-cookies.html) its hard to tell which is my favorite...

Anyway, let's get stuck into it...

Right, let's start with the brownie tray...

Sorry for the bad pic, but this is a bit of scrap clay that I shaped into the rough size and shape of the baking tray that I had in mind.

I baked the template and let it cool before moving on to the next part.

When my template was ready to be used I rolled out a thin sheet of pearl white clay (I love the sparkles in it), and placed it over the top. (Pro tip: dusting the template with cornflour/baby powder ensures that the clay wont stick to it...)

When I trimmed down the excess along the sides, I traced out and left the handles on the tray. You could always put them on after, and honestly I would recommend it, but that is not what I did... DON'T remove the clay from the template, but bake the whole piece as is. This helps the tray keep it's shape. I also recommend leaving it bottom up  during the baking process too, this is because the clay softens and sort of melts a little before curing in the baking process. 

Now the star of the show...

I took a piece of dark brown/chocolate clay and instead of rolling it out, I pressed it to the right height using my fingers. That gives it the uneven surface. I cut it to the right size and put it in the tray.

Keep the cut-offs to be made into the pieces for the plates, just cut into squares and texture in the same way as the brownies left in the tray.

 Once it is in the tray, I scraped little bits of the brown clay up the sides of the tray, and textured the body of it with a variety of tools (what ever works). I used my needle, toothbrush, and dotting tools.

I took tiny bits of the cut offs and scraped it along the bottom of the tray.

Again, i forgot to picture it, but I used dome of the scrap clay to add another piece to the one corner, and using a lighter shade of brown, added a few chocolate chips on the top.

The tea set:

 

For the cups I used the back of my craft knife although I'm sure that a pen would work too.

I pushed it into a ball of the same pearl white as the tray and shaped it a little using my fingers.

I wasn't too worried about the rim of the cup, as I would be sanding it anyway.

For these it is not necessary to leave these on the template because they are small enough not to collapse under their own weight.

 Here they ate baked and ready for the handles.

Handles added and baked again. I also sanded the cups and smoothed out any imperfections.  I found that the handles were not durable enough to have holes in them, but because of the smallness of them, I don't think that it would be a problem.

I cheated a little here and instead of going through the trouble of using TLS, or coloured resin, I just used a bit of dark brown clay in the bottom of the cups and once it was all baked and ready to go, I glossed the 'tea' really well while using a matte glaze on the rest of the cup.

The teapot started like this. A fat slightly elongated circle. I made this out of the same pearly white clay. I added a flattened piece to the bottom.

 For the spout, I started with a snake, and just slightly shaped it using my knife and needle tool...

 Another flattened circle went on top for the lid, and although it isn't shown, I employed a similar approach for the handle...

 A little fork. This was sort of a last minute addition, but I'll share them either way. 

I cut a bit of balsa wood into a strip.

Using tiny cuttings of the thinnest wire I had and, starting in the middle, I poked them into the one end of the balsa wood.

Trim down the excess. I think that I should have painted them, but its a little late now...

All that is left now is a bit of paint and sealing... I used a gold pearlescent paint to add a little detail to the edge of the cups, teapot and plates. I also added a tiny bit of red paint to the lip of the half empty cut: a lipstick mark.

And there you have it. 

Well I hope you can have fun with that .

Until next time,

ACL.

More Mini Food?! (Nacho's & Salsa...)

Hello dear ones! I hope that you are all loving what ever it is that you're doing...

I thought that I could show you my interpretation of a nacho chip plate with a bowl of salsa (and the preparation of the salsa).

Should we start with the chips?

 Okay, so I know that they turned out a little too dark, but for the purposes of this post, I'll hope that you forgive me...

So I started by rolling out a thin sheet.

 I cut them out into triangles of roughly the same size. I wasn't too concerned that they are all exactly the same, because, well, chips aren't...

Next I used my old toothbrush to texture them and at the same time shape them so that they were no longer flat.

Next I'll show you how I made the avocado.

 I started out with a pale yellow and an lime green.

I made a skinner blend with then a little light on the yellow.

 If you are not sure how to make the skinner blend, or need a little refresher course, have a look at my strawberry cane in The Pancakes/Crapes post. http://whatsannadoingtoday.blogspot.com.au/2016/07/mini-food-pancakescrapes-with.html

Showing the progress of the skinner blend.

All done.

At this point I reduced the sheet to form a roll that starts light and ends dark.

The snake I then flattened and rolled from light to dark.

Here's what that looks like.

For the next part I simply squashed the top half of the cane and made it into a teardrop shape.

 I sliced off the ends and cut the cane in half. 

Once half I then covered in a thin sheet of a dark green clay. the other I left plain.

The plain one I sliced into thin slices like these. I then sliced these in half .

This is a piece of thin metal (I cut a piece out of a tea light holder and shaped it to the right size).

This is the tea light that I cannibalized throughout this project.

Using my makeshift cutter I cut small little half circles out of the bottom half of the avo slices. This is where the pip would have been.

 The cane with the dark green 'skin' I cut into rather thick slices to make a whole split avo. On the back side (not pictured) I pinched the dark sides together and smoothed them over, forming a rounded edge.

Next I used my ball tool to make an indent for the pip.

I used a simple brown clay ball to represent the pip in one of the halves.

(PS. Save all of the cut offs as we will use then to make the mushed avo later...)

I made some lemons too, but at the same time I also made limes and oranges. (I like lemons with everything.) 

I used three different shades of each of the desired colours (orange/yellow/green/white). I mixed an equal amount of translucent into each of them.

Starting with the lightest of all the shades I rolled it into a snake and rolled a sheet of the next shade. The darkest shade I kept for the peel. (A skinner blend would work here too.)

Again I reduced the cane and shaped ti to make a teardrop.

 I cut the tears haped cane into 5 equal sized pieces.

This part can be a little fiddly, so patience is the key here...

I took a sheet of the white and translucent mix and rolled out a really thin sheet. I used them to cover 2 of the sides of the cane.

(it might be noteworthy to see that for the 'lime' I flattened the rounded side)

 Stack them together like this.

This is the flat side. See how there is one still green side left.

Once you reduce this, cut it in half and join together. I took a tiny bit of the white and rolled a little snake and laced it in the middle before joining the two halves.

 I did the other fruits a little differently. I added the white over the last of the darkest, but I found that there was too much white when I did things this way.

Once you have the two halves joined. Cover the cane with the last and darkest shade of clay.

This is the completed cane. Reduce to the right size and slice thin slices for, um, slices; and make the cane cuts a little larger for the fruit halves.

Before baking add texture and detail to the inside of the fruit. I used my needle tool for this.

For the peel, I gently rolled the rounded edge of the fruit halves on a bit of sandpaper.

(Almost done...) The knife and the chopping board next.

For the knife blade I took another piece of the tea light holder.

 I cut it to size and left a fair amount on the bottom of the blade which is where I will add some clay to serve as the handle.

(Oh, I forgot about the chilli! They are really simple. A bit of red clay rolled into a thin snake add pinched off at the one end. Add a little curve and some green clay and you are good to go.)

For the chopping board, I took a piece of balsa wood and cut it down to size. 

It was really hard to get any photos of this process and none of them really show you what is happening, so you will have to use your imagination for this one. 

Once I had the right size I carefully distressed the surface in the middle of the wood with my hobby knife. I made shallow cuts that don't show on the light wood, but be sure not to cut too deep...

Lastly I stained it using black coffee.

The plate and the bowl were pretty simple too. 

 I cut out a circle of white clay and shaped it by placing it on the bottom of a small glass dish that I have. I weighed the middle down slightly using a slightly smaller circle cut from thin balsa wood.

 For the bowl in the center I used the rounded edge of the one handle from my old rolling pin. I shaped the sheet of clay over it and baked it before gluing it into the center of my plate.

And that's that.

Remember the cut offs of the avocado cane? Well I used that and mashed it up (kind of) and filled the bowl with that. The chips were then arranged around on the rest of the plate.

I used a few tiny pieces of the chilli red on the top of the mushed avo...

All done!

I hope you have as much fun with this as I did.

Until next time,

ACL.