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Cacti made out of polymer clay – Sculpey

Sculpely

claycactus3
This summer at FunLab camp, we had a guest artist, Jessica Smith, join our teaching team for three art filled afternoons. Obviously I am partial as she is my sister but check out what she does here. During her time with our campers she taught them how to use the versatile crafting material Sculpey III. At first I was worried about the classes being over the level of our campers whose ages range from 5 to 10 years of age but their creations are truely spetacular! Follow our tutorial that she put together for us on how to create Miniature Cacti! She started by having the kids look at pictures for inspiration.

You will need:
Various colors Sculpey III (easy to find in Italy from amazon)
Oven
Toothpicks
Hot glue
Small clay pots
Paper clips

Language development: roll, decorate, lines, dots, open, paperclip, stick, insert, flowers, spines, oven, cook, assemble, pots

Let get started:
Step 1: Have the kids look at pictures of cactus and deserts to get an idea of what you are going to have them do. It helps to have one miniature cactus already put together.

Step 2: Have the kids roll green sculpey into a small log about 2 cm long. Insert the opened paperclip into the bottom of the roll.
buildingcactus1

Step 3: Roll two smaller logs of green clay and press onto the side of the larger roll.
buildingcactus3

Step 4: Use a toothpick to add lines and dots to the clay cactus to make it look more realistic.
details

Step 5: Add small purple flowers.
purpleflowers

Step 6: Repeat with a round ball made out of a darker shade of green. Decorate and add flowers.

Step 7: Cook following the instructions on the Sculpey III.

Step 8: Assemble the pots. We pushed the paperclip into an old cork and then glued into our pots. We filled the pots with sand to make them more realistic.

Our campers got into the project and added their own details!
student made cacti
Alison

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