Spidercorn

This is what happens when you get dragged through the nine sparkly circles of unicorn hell and finally come out the other side, the physical manifestation of the elusive Spidercorn.

One my daughter's friends, who apparently knows me all too well suggested I make a spider unicorn and I thought that was a brilliant idea.

I started with the basics from MovieTrollop's "How to make a SUPER EASY horse and/or pony", that I used for my fondant unicorn.  I just added more eyes and legs and actually used polymer clay this time. 

If you want to try making your own Spidercorn and need some eight legged inspiration Adorable Spiders lives up to it's name with tons of pictures of adorable spiders.    

Fondant Unicorn Cake Topper

Cute doesn't come naturally for me.  Attempts at cute wind up being monstrous abominations (not that I view this as a bad thing). So I'm just as surprised as anyone that this adorable little guy was made by me.  I did have a little help from this wonderful video from MovieTrollop, "How to make a SUPER EASY horse and/or pony".  There's no way I would've come up with this on my own. Left to my own devices I would've been flailing all over the place. Even though the tutorial is for making tiny (an inch?) little horse bodies out of polymer clay, it easily translated to a five inch fondant body.  She starts by showing the size of all the balls of clay that are needed in proportion to each other, from there it's easy to make a body of any size. 

I used Wilton fondant.  I read quite a few recommendations that Wilton is a good brand for newbies, at least for this type of thing, as it tends to be stiffer.  It seemed like most professionals use higher grade fondants with hardening agents mixed in.  I don't plan to become proficient at fondant, so Wilton is fine for the likes of me. I'm happy to leave real cake decorating to true artists. 

I also read that Wilton is one of the worse tasting fondants, but then does anyone actually eat this stuff?  I've never heard anyone say, "Oh you have to try this fondant it's so delicious." Probably the highest compliment I've heard anyone give any particular fondant is, "It doesn't taste horrible." That folks, is not enough of a reason for me to put something in my mouth. 

For this guy I used most of a 24oz package.  I used about two-thirds of it for the body, legs, ears and nostrils. It is definitely softer than polymer clay. After forming the body, I turned it over, and stuck a toothpick through each front leg and one through the base of the body into the head, for a little added support.  Then I flipped it back over and added the nostrils and ears.  I brushed the whole thing with Wilton white pearl dust and then added the eyes which are round black candies. Then I set a parchment paper tent over it to protect from dust and let it set for a while.  The front legs did get tiny wrinkles, like elephant legs, from the weight of the head pressing down, but no one but me seems to have noticed. 

I colored some of remaining fondant using Wilton neon gel colors.  I made the horn using the same process I used to make the polymer clay horns.  I used a teeny bit purple and a teeny bit blue fondant marbled with white. I stuck a toothpick two thirds into the horn and then stuck the other end into the head. The hair is the opposite with a lot of purple and blue marbled with a teeny bit white.  I brushed on a little bit of water to attached the hair. Here's a few shots from different angles. 

I let it dry out for a few days in a deep dish covered with parchment paper.  Besides keeping dust off, I also read that light can fade colored fondant.  My daughter wanted to keep him, so to prevent getting frosting on him, I cut out the bottom of a paper plate to match the unicorns bottom and set that down on the cake first.  I don't know how long he'll last, but for now he's in a bell jar, in a cool place that gets very limited light.  He hasn't melted or faded or attracted bugs or seeped any of his cutest into the rest of my realm. 

Unicorn Poop Charm

The whole reason I started on my adventures with polymer clay is because I saw some rainbow poop cookies and thought they looked awesome but would probably taste like crap with all the artificial coloring.  (The whole reason I started down this dark path of unicorns and rainbows is something we do not speak of.)

If you are a polymer clay virgin like I was, you might want to read this, I listed a few things that helped me to get started. 

Much like the unicorn horns the only thing I did differently than most of the rainbow poops out there is the way I add the eye pin and mix the colors. 

I used the marbling technique in this video to mix the colors.  I love the way this looks, but I think a little bit goes a long way and too much will muddy the colors. It might be my imagination, or that I need to improve my technique, but I found I got better results when starting with larger quantities of clay. The amount I used below is enough to make 8-10 poops approximately 3/4 inch diameter at the base. This video shows how to make rainbow poop with a nice basic twist of colors which is just as pretty, just a different look and less steps. 

I think this video has nicely shaped poop.  This video also has a nice poop shape and was the inspiration for how I do my eye pin. If you just want to make a stand alone poop like this golden poop my daughter made, just skip the eye pin altogether. All hail the Golden Turd!

I couldn't help but notice that other people had poop swirls far superior to mine.  What I've decided many poops later is that:

While I totally recommend making cute
little poop earrings, these aren't the
greatest shape for the reasons mentioned.

a) I was tapering the ends too much.  Leaving most of the log a uniform length and just tapering off the tippy top of the ends results in a much more pleasing poop shape.


This poop is in serious danger of
being mistaken for soft serve ice cream.

b) I was making my logs too thin and coiling them too much.  I believe three is the magic number of poop swirls, four can be acceptable, but it starts to look more like a soft serve ice cream cone. than poop. 



c) The last video I mentioned coils the poop around a small piece of clay.  For me it is easier to coil the poop and then feed the center piece through the bottom. Skip down to the bottom to see pictures.  In fact just skip down to the bottom anyway, it's only the last few steps that are really important anyway. 

I started with approximately 1/8 inch slices of each color.  I used Premo Sculpey Accents Pink Florescent, Orange, Zinc Yellow, Accents Bright Green Pearl and Accents Peacock Blue Pearl. I love the sparkle that the Accent colors give to these poops. I stacked them and then rolled them flat and then rolled them into a tube. You could roll each color into a snake and then press them together. 

Gently press evenly on all sides until there is no space in the center. 

 

 

Roll it out into a log and give it a nice twist.

Then fold the ends to the middle and twist.

Roll it out until it's smooth. Cut it in half, set one half aside and roll the other out. I do this a lot, working it a little and then setting half aside for later. Working down to a smaller chunk of clay makes it more manageable.   Also if I don't like the end result, I've only messed up that one little piece, not the whole batch. 
Because it's always the last twist that was the one time too many. 

Cut that in half, set one aside and roll the other out.

Twist the ends to spiral the colors.

Fold the ends to the center and give it a twist.

 

 

Roll it out, cut it half and set one piece aside. It can be helpful to loosely coil the final log of clay to see if it's about the right length and thickness. 

The piece below is pretty close, you want it a tad shorter and thicker because after the next step it'll be just right. 

 

 

Roll the piece out a little more and cut a bit off the end.
Taper the ends and roll the bit around the eye part of the eye pin. 
For size reference that is a two inch long eye pin.

 

 

Coil the log into a poop shape and insert the eye pin through the center.

 

 

At this point I put on a pair of latex gloves, to keep from leaving anymore fingerprints.  Gently cradling your poop so you don't misshapen it, use a ball stylus tool or similar to smooth out the center piece. That center piece doesn't have to fill the entire cavity, remember it's only purpose is to hold that eye pin secure. Turn the poop back over and smooth away any fingerprints with a gloved finger or smooth tool.  And there you have your poop. 

To bake, I used the set up described at The Blue Bottle Tree, with the tile and aluminum pans clipped together.  I baked it at 275 for 2 hours. This poop was about 3/4 inch at the base.  The Sculpey instructions say a half hour for every 1/4 inch.  I've read a lot of people saying to bake for longer, so I've been tacking on a little extra time to be on the safe side.  

Ever hear the expression, "You can't polish a turd."? Not only has that been debunked by MythBusters, but you can see from the results below that you absolutely can polish a turd.

After baking and cooling, I did a little wet sanding, quickly going around in little circles, maybe spending 10-15 seconds with each grit of paper. I used 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1200 and 2000.  I didn't worry about getting into every nook and cranny. I also didn't worry about sanding the eye pins and accidentally sanded the finish off in some places, oops. After sanding, I buffed with a piece of denim. The more you buff, the shinier it gets.  The poop on the far right below was buffed for about a minute. The poop in the middle was buffed an additional minute and look how it gleams.  The poop on the left was not sanded or buffed, it just has a coat of glossy acrylic on it.  It's more work to sand and buff, but I like the finish better. 


Then wire wrap the end and if you so chose, decorate with glitter glue, rhinestones or googly eyes.  If you are unfamiliar with wire wrapping this is a nice illustration or if you like more detail here's a comprehensive video.

 

Unicorn Glitter Farts

 

I think it's common knowledge that unicorns poop rainbows and fart glitter.  But don't just take my word for it, it's all over the internet, which pretty much makes it scientific fact.  Also smelling unicorn farts will definitely cure cancer.*

 

*Don't actually sniff glitter.  I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure sniffing glitter can only end badly.   

  

I needed a dozen tiny bottles of unicorn farts, don't ask.  Do you know how hard it is to get unicorns to fart in those little bottles?  Anyway, have you ever had one of those days where you just can't find anything in the store that you need for a project?  That's exactly what didn't happen here.  I found these groovy bottles on sale, glitter on clearance and I was sporting a 20% off all purchases coupon. Sometimes the planets are just in the right alignment for frivolous nonsense.   

See how tiny they are?
See how giant the glue stick looks?

For my purposes I just needed the two smaller sizes.  I see they have another tiny vial pack that looks promising, but those weren't available at the store.  I picked up this glitter sample pack, even if it wasn't on clearance for $.99, it was a great assortment of rainbow of colors.

Putting glitter in a bottle doesn't really need a lot of explanation, but I'm not going to let that stop me.  If you're not interested in my ramblings you can grab the labels and skip the rest. 


This was my original design, but it didn't work well with the size I needed for the teeny bottles.  I used Glitter by Omega Font Labs for the word 'GLITTER' and ActionIs by Brain Eaters for the rest.  I used this picture to fill the text.  I love how together they have this Milky Way stardust thing going on, but sized down for the small bottles it just looked like my printer was running low on ink. 

 

 

So I made a couple simplified versions. In this case My Girl is Retro by KC Fonts was used for the word 'GLITTER'.

  

 

If you stuck around for my ramblings, here are a few things that I found useful for this project.  First I splurged and picked up a $.99 two pack of funnels, conveniently sold next to the glitter.  Both funnels have the same size nozzle which was a little disappointing.  They are nested together in the package so you can't tell just the top part is different.  They were the same exact size as the mouth of the long skinny bottles, so although I couldn't insert them into the bottle, a piece of tape kept them lined up together.  The funnels did fit the shorter bottles.

 

I also used this handy dandy Lego oar for scooping the glitter out of those tiny sample packs.  It was easier to control glitter amounts by the oar-full than to trust my pouring.  Lego also makes a nice shovel, but I preferred the oar. This was another glitter I got on clearance, two dollars worth of holographic joy, it's so sparkly.  It also comes with a secret hidden funnel, but it's just a smidge to big for the little jars. The chambers are deep with narrow openings, so I added the Lego light saber to extend the handle. I love Legos. 

Another high tech piece of equipment that was invaluable was a roll of athletic tape. It didn't have to be athletic tape, a short narrow dish would've worked.  I could have easily built something out of Legos.  I just needed something to set the jar in while filling so that if I bumped it, the whole thing wouldn't tip over. I found out the hard way that I'm not capable of knocking things over and that's a bad thing if you don't want the layers mixed. Tape wasn't my best idea, since any loose glitter stuck to the edges of the roll, so don't do that.

 

This could all be simplified by just putting any old glitter in a jar, but I wanted rainbow layers.  That means a color or two at time, gentle little tap to settle the glitter and move on to the next layers.  Fill the bottle almost all the way to the top, put the cork in and give it a few good taps. If the cork is in all the way and there is space add a bit more glitter. Keep tapping and adding until it's packed tight, this will keep the layers from shifting.  Remove the cork, add a little glue to bottom edge and re-cork.  Or don't and randomly share your glitter fart with the world.  Just remember glitter is considered craft herpes for a reason, so spread it with care.  

Unicorn Horn Charms

Up until unicorns invaded my life I was a polymer clay virgin. To quote Janet, "Now all I want know is how to go. I've tasted blood and I want more." I see this becoming addictive, the polymer clay, not the unicorns. Maybe the unicorns a little bit, they do fart glitter, and oh how I do love glitter.

As with every new journey I embark on, I gobbled up a lot of information before getting started.   One of the tastier bits was this brain tutorial from Sugar Charm Shop.  She's extremely talented, and has been kind enough to share her process for making all manner of things from cute to creepy.  She makes it look so deceptively easy, watching her work is every bit as entertaining as seeing the finished product. 

But enough about her, let us bask in the glory of two logs of clay I twisted together! Making unicorn horns out of polymer clay is not an original idea, but I thought I'd share what happens when you combine this video on marbling clay with this video on making unicorn horns.  I do the eye pin differently, that's my only real contribution here, but I've included some crappy step by step photos of my entire process for anyone that's interested.  They are crappy, trying to photograph white on white in poor lighting didn't work out so well. 

I made a page of a few things that I found especially helpful in getting started with polymer clay, if you are a newbie like me, it might be worth a gander. 

I decided to make "realistic" unicorn horns.  Yep I just decided that this is what unicorn horns really look like in the wild. Unicorns in your dimension may vary, so please adjust your colors accordingly.  I used Premo Sculpey; equal amounts of Accents Translucent and Accents Frost White Glitter and two teeny tiny slivers of Accents Silver. The white and translucent are about 1/8 inch slices off the block.  For the record, the end product was a lot less glittery than I thought it would be.  I'd still use the glitter clay again, but just a plain white would work as well. 

 

I stacked the clay: white, silver over to the left, translucent, white, silver to the right, translucent. Then roll the stack flat.

Roll it into a log.
 

 

Then start the marbling process.  One thing I did different than the video is I brought the ends together in the center and then twisted. Roll it back out and repeat the process a couple more times. 

Roll it back out into a log and cut it in half.  Set the one aside for now and fold, twist and roll the other one.

Cut it in half and roll both halves, tapering the ends.  Then loosely twist them together and get the eye pin ready.

This where I differ from the video.  Gently untwist the horn about halfway down, place the 'eye' of the eye pin in the center and re-twist the horn around it.  The reason for this is the 'eye' is a lot wider than the width of the wire.  Once it's baked this bad boy isn't coming out.

Trim the end flat with a sharp blade. I don't have any clay tools yet so I used the round end of this Lego piece to softly pressed in the center of the end and smooth it flat. It helps to hold the horn as gently as possibly so you don't misshapen it. 

Then I rolled just the edge of the cut end a bit and then rolled the entire horn just a touch.  Really just the teeny tiniest bit, it's so easy to roll out all those wonderful twists you just put in.  If that happens, just cut the horn in half lengthwise, roll into two tapered logs and try again. Repeat with the other log to make a second horn. 

To bake, I used the set up described at The Blue Bottle Tree, with the tile and aluminum pans clipped together.  The horns were placed in the folds of an accordion folded piece of paper so they wouldn't flatten out on the bottom   I baked them at 275 for 1.5 hours. The horns are about 1/2 inch at the widest point.  The Sculpey instructions say a half hour for every 1/4 inch, but I decided to go with the school of thought to bake a little longer just to be on the safe side. 

After they cool, wire wrap the end.  If you are unfamiliar with wire wrapping this is a nice illustration or if you like more detail here's a comprehensive video.  We decorated them with 3mm rhinestones and/or glitter glue. With kids I use Aleene's Fast Grab Tacky glue, upside is it's not toxic, downside is it's not waterproof.  So far E6000 is the only thing I've used that is waterproof, but that stuff is pretty nasty. For both it helps to apply the glue with a toothpick when using those tiny rhinestones.  The glitter glue also wont stay on forever, but its fun while it lasts.