Is This Some Kind of a Bust?

Ok, now that I have the attention of all of you Naked Gun movie fans out there (yay!), let me explain.

Well-endowed female suspect: "Is this some kind of a bust?"
Detective Frank Dreben: "Yes, it's very impressive, but there's no time for that now."


One of the mannikin busts in the Second Chance Store had lost its head, and its neck hole was looking pretty sad. Being an intrepid crafter, I brought it home to fix. It was a pretty easy 4-step process, requiring only some polymer clay, a little gold acrylic paint, and 2 clip earrings, which were rejects from the store.

If you ever need to do something like this, here's how:

1. Create a ring of polymer clay that fits well inside the neck hole, cure it, and affix it to the inside of the neck hole with super glue (and a little duct tape just for insurance--not shown).
2. Create a circle of cloth-textured white polymer that will cover the neck hole completely. Cure it and rub it with gold acrylic paint.
3. Remove the clips from the earrings. Remove the pink plastic gem from one and the gold metal disk from the other. Glue the disk inside the setting from the pink gem, and glue the piece to the center of the neck cover.
4. Glue the underside of the embellished gold circle to the top of the polymer neck ring. Voila! Is this some kind of a bust, or what?

Speaking of Dog Portraits . . .

I'm so thrilled with the responses to my Polymer Painting Workshop at Polymer Clay Adventure! Several of the students were interested in painting portraits of their pets. I've never used my dogs as painting subjects, but I did make some dog face canes and used them on bracelet tiles. I want to share them with you here.

The top one is a Chihuahua (in case you can't tell), and the bottom one is a Boston Terrier. I made the basic face canes without the ears, chest, or collar. Then I added those elements to each tile individually so that each dog would have a slightly different look.

I made these several years ago, but hearing people talk about portraying their pets in clay makes me want to have another go!