On the subject of Polymer clay... Couple of hints...you can cover wire..any gauge with paper tape.. (you get from the floral department of any craft store)...and the clay will adhere better...

First, sculpt whatever your trying to make with aluminum foil...and then add the clay. You save clay and your item is not so heavy.

Also, polymer clay can be painted with several mediums...oil based paint, acrylic, powder, eye shadow, pastels, chalk...watercolors..etc. I've used them all.

When you bake...set the piece on a piece of cooking parchment paper. That will prevent the bottom from having a shine on the underneath. I'm a polymer clay doll artist...I mix my different brands all the time... I often save all my scrap clay..any color... and mix them to come up with some very interesting colors... For instance, all colors, excluding white, make black....Throw in some red and white and I've got a beautiful mauve.. Take that black...add somey ellow..and I've got green...etc....When I'm making a large doll (18 to 22 inches)...I don't mix...I discovered ProSculpt several years ago..and use it for my dolls...It only comes in three flesh colors.

I use a food processor to mix my clay...and condition it....I never use the food processor for cooking "regular" edible food. Also, a pasta machine is great for conditioning and thinning the clay.

Gloria

Lightweight Garden Walls: I haven't tried Crayola's Model Magic for very large items, but it certainly is light and it certainly is easy to work with, and paints or dyes well with magic markers. That MIGHT work for the wall, but I would suggest buying a small package to experiment with first. You can work out Fimo molds for bricks, or whatever, and then when you open the Model Magic, you stick a glob in the mold and pull it right out and let it start to dry while you are molding yet another piece. That would mean piecing the wall together. Or, you could press out a length/width of it and "stamp" your brick/mortor design on both sides of it (working relatively quickly.) I used some Model Magic when it first came out and it has held up well so far, and I have found it delightful to work with-but I still have issues with the unused portion drying out when not in use, despite all the suggestions I got from SS. Sometimes I am in a hurry and think I have it in an air tight container, but...NO...when I come back, there is this rubber ball.

Rose

Fimo: Fimo and other modeling compounds can actually bake during summer months or winter heat in a shop. But also understand that this is the exact reason shops are unwilling lately to carry it. If it doesn't sell fast, the temperatures of the shop will affect it. Not the shops fault at all. here is a hint for the buyers of modeling compounds. Just pick up a bar of the medium and press gently with your thumb into a corner of it. If it is flexible, the compound is fresh. If it doesn't budge, forget it.

Mary Eccher

Fimo and Sculpey mix well together. Although all the Polymer clays have a bit of variability in their baking temperatures, it is slight enough to be forgiven when mixed.

Mary Kaliski

Hollow Pumpkins - Instead of the lethal Styrofoam why not try a ball of aluminum foil. after it's baked it can be squished (like that word?) smaller and removed. Or you can use the kind of "peanuts" that are made of cornstarch and dissolve in water.

Gail Spector

Fimo pumpkins with foam balls: let me first give you a WARNING. When you make anything that will melt foam balls in the oven, the fumes are VERY toxic!!! If , as you say, you need to make a lot of them it could be downright dangerous. I make them for my park classes and here is the best way I have found to do it. I use a toaster oven and I always take an extension cord with me and set the oven up OUTSIDE where I won't have to worry about the fumes. Anyway, here is how I do them. I buy the smallest foam ball they make at the craft store (I think they are about 1/2", never measured them) and you kind of mash them to the shape of your pumpkin. (Pumpkins are never perfectly round). you condition the clay and roll it out to about 1/8th inch thick. wrap it around the ball and smooth off all creases. take the back of a knife and make your dents from top to bottom all the way around. stick a stem of your choosing (I pre-make the from fimo, but a stick is ok) into the top. with a single edge razorblade I then cut the "lid" but leave it on to bake it. It is much easier to carve the pumpkin before baking it, but if you want the kids to carve their own, take out the melted foam ball, return to the oven just long enough to warm them up a little and it will be easier to carve them after they get hard. Good luck, and be careful of those fumes.

Norieta in Hawaii

Pumpkins: watch out for the Halloween lights as well. I have seen strings of jack-o-lanterns, all you would have to do is cleverly place them so their faces were hidden. Also, found a cute pair of earrings at the dollar store, very teeny jack-o-lantern - it could be used as a decoration of some sort. The pair I bought, however, are decorating my ears (what a concept...;) lol!). They also had teeny little grave markers as well, for anyone interested in 1/4 Halloween.

Marbles for pumpkins: I bought a bag of marbles last year for various fimo projects. Most of them were too small, but there was the odd shooter in there (which is about 1/2 to 3/4 inch big). Would make a small pumpkin, anyway if you can find a bag that has one or two of the shooters included.

Okay, quick everybody, tell her what we can do with left-over little marbles! My suggestions are a tool for making fimo items like bowls, crystal balls, modern art and forms for small hats.

Kim Bulback

Hollow Pumpkins: Some years ago when my friend Judi wanted to make hollow pumpkins, I gave her some sculpting wax that I had here. She made wax balls and then made the Fimo pumpkin over. When she baked the Fimo, the wax melted and she had a hollow pumpkin. Had a bit of a messy tray too, but not too difficult to clean or can be lined with tin foil.

And the wax can be used again and again. I expect any soft wax could be used, not just sculpting wax, but I *know* that the sculpting wax works. I was certainly impressed with the end product!

Joy

Pumpkins: fill a balloon with sand, plaster, or any other powder material. Shape clay round balloon. After the pumpkin is baked the sand can just be drained from the balloon and no danger of it blowing up as the air expands.

Jacqui Marlin

Fimo, Grapes: Translucent and Transparent Fimo are the same thing. If you can't find either, the softener MIX QUICK can be used to make wonderful grapes.... add just a tiny bit of Leaf Green for green grapes, or Bordeux Red for red grapes, or Purple for purple grapes.

If you use clear nail polish to coat your modeling compound projects, you run the risk of it turning yellow in time.

Mary Eccher

Bowls: If you need an item to make the impression for your bowls (depending on the scale) you can try the rounded end of broom handles or for that matter any thing with a rounded end or orb shape to press into your bowl medium. Marbles come in various sizes and by powdering the marble and pressing it into the medium you should get the impression you want. I have used marbles pressed into baker's clay.

DrBob...Delray Beach, FL

You can get Translucent Liquid Sculpy and 1.5 mm no-hole beads at http://www.rings-things.com

Bette Greenfield

The Clay Menace: To avert Polymer Panic, there's a reassuring read at: www.prairiecraft.com

Go to the "About Polymer Clays" section. It's a commercial site, but it has the most lucid discussion I've encountered.

Mary

Making easy grapes: I once saw several tubes of "holeless" glass beads at our Ben Franklin store. They were in the 70% off bin and at the price of a few cents off I bought them for the "someday" they may come in handy for something. These are little round glass beads used to glue on clothing (full size) as decoration for those who don't or can't, bead. Mine are red, purple, two shades of green and black. Not only have I used up all of the grape colors as grapes, but the reds are beautiful as cherries on pies and pastries with a clear glaze over them. They are translucent and the colors are deep and vibrant.

To make the grapes, form a small cone shape on the end of covered wire. You can make it from Poly clay, but if you don't have any, wrap thread around and around into a cone shape on the wire,(stem size wire). Smear a thin layer of tacky glue on the cone and roll it in the glass beads, shape with your fingers and let dry.

Before I had the glass beads, I used to make them from transparent Fimo with just a touch of whatever color I wanted the grapes to be. Blend together until they are the translucent color you want. Roll into tiny balls and bake. Make your cone and roll in the baked balls. To make the tendrils, I wound fine wire on a needle and cut little pieces to glue on the grape bunch. There a fairly cheap paper punches in the shape of oak or maple leaves that look very good as grape leaves.

No fimo? Use millet or bird seed (the round ones) and after they are on the cone and dry, paint with acrylic paints in colors needed.

One other thing I do: When I was young, my Grandmother had a bowl of wax fruit on her table for decoration. She had many grandchildren and there were many little teethmarks in that fruit! I was doing a memory box of her kitchen (in the late 40's) and I made Fimo fruit, baked it, then melted paraffin wax in a small can in a pot of boiling water and dunked the fruit in it. .Wonderful "wax" fruit!!

Norieta

Crumpets and Pikelets: Crumpets are made from a sort of yeasty batter, poured into ring moulds and partially cooked. They can be roughly 3-4 inches across. Raw, they are pale ivory in colour, and limp, with tan brown bottoms. Their top is covered in holes, where the air bubbles from the yeast have exploded. They are faintly damp.

When toasted, they brown a little on top, and become faintly crisp. They have uneven tops, so don't try and make the top ruler-flat, use something human to make them very slightly uneven (and holey). They are then buttered. The whole point of a crumpet is butter; their ability to absorb butter is second to none, so lavish quantities likely to make any cardiologist faint can be spread on them. It melts into their hot holey carcasses. A cold buttered crumpet is a disgusting thing.

A 'pikelet' is a Yorkshire variant, the same in every way but thin as a thick pancake. And yes, another butter monster.

If you decide to make them from Fimo (NB I have never tried this) BUT if I were doing it I would push coarsely ground salt into the top surface. Once the Fimo is baked, drop cooked Fimo into hot water, which will dissolve the salt, leaving the holes. The holes on the top (which vary in size from tiny to 1/4" across) are the sign of the crumpet - you may make the crumpets bigger, or smaller, but you may not leave the holes off.

Helen from York, England

Scones: Take equal parts of ochre/white/yellow Fimo, and blend in a pinch of semolina (for texture). For fruit scones I'd add poppy seeds. For cheese scones I'd add pre-baked teeny bits of golden yellow Fimo Cheddar cheese. Scones (in real life) are cut from rolled out flat scone dough with fluted edged cutters. To emulate this, take small balls that, when flattened, will give you a depth of about 1-1/2" in real life i.e. 3/24ths" in 1:12 minis. Gently indent the sides of the small flattened ball with a cocktail stick so the whole of the circumference is patterned with faint vertical grooves. Gently brush with brown pastel to give color. Bake. You could then halve them and butter them. Don't forget the strawberry jam. Well, not on the cheese ones... Please note that scones are moody little beasts if home made, and can come out of the oven beastly flat, or really high. They are also laterally challenged in that it can be rare for a home made scone to look neat and tidy. More often they are vaguely misshapen. So if your Fimo scones aren't perfectly round - good!

Helen from York, England

Tamales: A suggestion for the corn husk for tamales might be crepe paper that is rolled and lightly glued. Party supply places still carry that product. Crepe paper streamers might have too large a texture while the folded paper is finer.

Another suggestion is to roll out Fimo (or favorite poly clay) very, very thin and then press it onto real corn husks to get the texture. Roll and bake.

Sharon Krauss

Thanksgiving Dinner: Turkeys can be 12 pounds or 24. Chances are if it looks right on your 1:12 platter the size is fine. Most of my large (24 pound) turkeys are a little more than an inch.

Pie in a bottle cap is pushing it. Most pies are 8" - 9" or 10 " and a bottle cap would be at least an inch and therefore 12"- If you are having a big crowd (lol) and have a fairly large size table the 12" pie might work but often it can throw off the scale for your whole dinner. Try making your pie smaller and if you are using fimo and have no pan you can always paint the bottom silver to look like a pan or leave the "crust" and serve it on a plate

Gail Spector

To make shredded coconut: Make block of polymer clay in the appropriate color (white or off white for plain coconut, tan for toasted coconut, pink for pink-tinted coconut, etc.). Bake. Then use a razor blade to shave off bits. This looks great sprinkled over cakes, especially over caulking "icing".

Celeste in Boston

To make whole coconuts: Make a small, pea-sized ball of white clay. Cover with a thin (1/32") layer of brown clay. Use a razor blade to make striations (lines running from north/south) all over the coconut. Use the point of a dull wooden pencil to make three indentations (think about a bowling ball). Bake. Scrape the outside a little more with the razor blade to make it look less smooth. Cut halfway through the ball with razor blade; break open the rest of the way so that the division is not perfectly straight. Then gently insert the corner of the razor blade into the center of one half and turn to carve out a hollow in the center. It doesn't have to be perfectly round or smooth. Repeat with the other half.

Celeste in Boston