I've made penguins like this at least a few dozen times now. They're one of the things that I have no problem selling in my Etsy shop and they're pretty fun to make. I also had a whole flock of them on my own wedding cake. Today's set is the largest so far. I made them for someone who requested penguins of a certain height.

These penguins are easy if you want to make a set for yourself. Just start with two spheres of polymer clay, one about four times as big as the other. Shape the larger sphere into the body by rolling it and narrowing a little bit at the top. Now, stick the head to the body; it doesn't take much to make polymer clay bond, so you can add it without scoring or pressing too hard. Next, roll out two spheres of equal size for the wings. For penguins 3.5 inches tall I used two marble sized pieces. I flattened them both into wings and attached them to the side by pressing gently.

I always take a few minutes at this point and wash my hands. The black clay will usually stick to you and make the beak and tummy look dingy. No matter what I do I always leave a slight residue, but it's much better after soap and water.

Next, I rolled out a ball about half the size of a marble and flattened it into an oval to make the white tummy. I pressed this to the body taking care to press the edges into the penguin body.

Last is the beak. If you press your thumb, pointer finger and middle finger together you'll get a natural three-sided pyramid shape. I just press a marble sized clay into the space created by my three fingers to form the beak. After I pressed the beak to the head (I like to angle them so the penguins are looking at each other), I used a ball point pen and simply poked in two dots for the eyes.

Following the directions on the polymer clay, I baked the figurines for 30 minutes. Done!

Labels: cute, polymer clay, projects

posted by Alison 2/03/2009 11:48:00 PM : (0) comments : splink