Baby's 1st Christmas

Today I am going to share with you an ornament I made for my granddaughter.  I had found an ornament much like this on the internet a while back and I had saved it for this very moment.  I'm not sure if the ornament I found was from last year or a couple of years ago.  I don't have a link to it and I don't know who is the original designer of it.  I do think though that it was a manufactured ornament.  I LOVED it and saved the image.

So I made this for my granddaughter and I thought I would share it with you.

The pea pod is made using polymer clay.  I poked a hole in the end with a wire so I could add beads to a longer wire and insert it in the clay once it was baked.  For me, that was the most difficult part of the ornament because I had trouble getting the wire into the clay without the beads getting gaps in them.  There was nothing to grab onto to hold the wire and I couldn't use a tool because the wire was too thin and it would bend and crimp.  That was not a good thing.  But I finally managed to get it into place and all was well with that part of it.

The baby face is also made from polymer clay.  I tried sculpting it but I am not great at sculpting realistic looking things so after several hours and many attempts I opted for a more whimsical look.  The hat and the blanket are pieces of a knitted glove.  The body part was filled in with some fiberfill and everything was glued into place.  

On the ribbon (and of course it doesn't show in this photo) I ironed on the words "Baby's 1st Christmas".  I used some iron on paper that you can put in your printer.  You print in mirror format so it's backwards on the paper but once it's ironed on it's correct.  I trimmed it very close to the words so I could get it all on the ribbon.  I tied the ribbon on and it was all done.  I did forget to mention that the polymer clay is baked.  I have a toaster oven that is used only for polymer clay.  I'm sure there is years of polymer clay film in that oven.  It can only be used for the clay.  Clay bakes at 257 F and most foods cook higher than that.  When the clay is baked at 275 F it is non toxic but at higher temperatures it isn't.  So that also includes the film inside the oven.  So it's just best to bake only the clay in this oven.  It's a designated oven!!

Thank you SO much for visiting today,
Wanda