It’s easy to find creative ideas for making food charms, especially when you’re hungry. For any food inspired artist, creating clay charms of your favorite food makes it easier to get started.
But like anyone who struggles with figuring out what they should make for dinner, it can be hard to decide you next clay project.
If you’re indecisive and need inspiration, scroll through the food side of social media, family cookbooks, or browse the menu at your favorite recipe.
You could also practice decorating cakes or cupcakes without wasting actual ingredients and exploding your kitchen.
Bonus, no dirty dishes! Though the charm may look realistic and delicious, it sadly isn’t real…
Now that you have ideas for your clay charm, it’s time to start thinking about the type of clay you would like to use. Choice of clay matters!
Sculpey has several types of clay to choose from, for any skill level. Starting with air dry clay is great, but sometimes the quality is poor and mixing colors is exhausting.
Sculpey III is great for beginners in polymer clay because it’s soft and easy to work with. However, this clay is prone to fingerprints and tiny details are more fragile.
The best options for higher quality realistic food charms are Premo and Soufflé! I personally use both of these because they are much more flexible than air dry and Sculpey III when handled and baked correctly. This flexibility means your charm will be able to withstand just about anything.
Both Premo and Soufflé can hold an insane amount of detail, which is important for creating realistic miniatures.
The concepts of basic color, texture, and shape are important to keep in mind when it comes to making miniature realistic clay food.
With Sculpey’s wide range of colors, you can easily mix any shade your heart desires. Mixing the correct shades of colors to accurately mimic the real food is key. If colors are just a little bit off, it’s not that big of a deal.
However, if you are using neon yellow for pasta noodles, it throws off the whole realistic theme of the charm. Unless you’re recreating a neon spaghetti recipe, in that case you’re good to go! I keep a color recipe book so I can correctly duplicate the same custom color when I need to make more of the same charm.
Translucent clay will be your best friend in your miniature food journey. For example, pasta has yellow tones and rice is white, but it’s not a solid color. A touch of translucent added to those colors makes mini pasta and rice a lot more realistic. Some fruit like orange, apple, and strawberry slices need translucent to pull off the realistic fresh look.
Attention to small details like this will help bring your creations to life.
Texture is another component of realistic food. Hard and fine bristle toothbrushes, needle tools of various sizes, and silicone sculpting tools will help you achieve the textures you’re looking for.
Experimenting with different polymer clay techniques helps you discover your own style and what works to make a good charm look realistic. Here’s a few examples of tools, and how you can use them.
I use a fine, soft toothbrush to add texture to almost every charm I make. Lightly tapping the clay with the bristles of the toothbrush is the quickest way to transform a bland and flat piece of clay into a textured and realistic masterpiece.
Cakes, bread, and other fluffy textures are achieved with a needle tool. You can experiment with crafting needles or sewing needles. Fluffing up the clay on the surface of a charm is time consuming, but it’s well worth it in the end!
Silicone tools are amazing for shaping and smoothing complicated designs that can’t be achieved with toothbrushes or needle tools.
Frosting is a texture that’s hard to achieve with tools and stiff clay alone. You will find it difficult to recreate the smooth soft texture of real frosting with these materials. Mixing clay and clear liquid Sculpey creates the perfect frosting effect for cakes, cupcakes, and more. All you need is a flat blade, like a craft blade, to smooth the liquid clay mixture onto a cake charm like you would with a knife and real frosting.
The most obvious detail is paying attention to the shapes of food. Rectangles, triangles, circle, sphere, etc.
Breaking down a dish into simple shapes will make it easier for you to accurately sculpt the right proportions.
Most of these shapes can be achieved with common clay cutters, but sometimes you have to sculpt a complicated non-descript shape with silicone tools.
A cupcake usually has a triangle shape for the frosting, the cake itself is a circle on top of a square cone shape.
A burger has several flat components, a square piece of cheese, round and flat tomatoes, and usually a rounded bun.
Starting with simple shapes for the base is important and helps give you an idea of what needs to be done.
Finishes are the last detail needed to make your charm look complete, because sometimes the unfinished look of the clay isn’t enough.
Look closely at a picture of a real plate of food. What looks shiny and what stays matte?
Let’s use steak as an example, a little gloss glaze on the surface of a steak charm gives it that fresh, juicy look.
The cherries on top of a cupcake need a gloss glaze to look shiny and bright.
Sculpey’s gloss glaze is one of my favorite finishes to use because it protects my work, and it never loses its shine.
You’ve made all these miniature food charms, but now they just sit and collect dust. What now?
Here’s a few fun ideas!
Before baking a polymer clay charm, add a jewelry eyelet to turn the charms into a necklace, fun pair of earrings, or a charm bracelet.
If jewelry isn’t your thing, you can find a display to put them all in and showcase your work for others to see. Because I don’t wear much jewelry, I display most of my work in a house shaped frame with little shelves.
Miniature food is also a very fun addition in a dollhouse!
