Miniature bakery #1

I remember first coming across miniature model food in the Dolls House Emporium catalogue. Something about the level of detail captured my imagination. Years later I found a whole collection of handmade miniature doll house food in an antiques shop whilst on holiday and started looking into how they are made. I learned that many people use polymer clay. You create the piece from either white or coloured clay, then bake it, paint it and glaze/ varnish it (thought not necessarily in that order - I’m still working that out).

Below are a few of my first attempts at making some miniature baked goods from polymer, along with some of the materials I used. I chose baked items because, with the exception of the baked beans, they didn’t require liquid polymer and were fairly straight forward. I like these for a first try but can already see things I’d do differently next time. All good learning…

Baked beans on toast

I made the toast and individual beans first, from soft, white polymer. Then I coloured the ‘sauce’ using liquid polymer and mixed the beans in, before baking the whole lot as one piece. I also made the plate as I didn’t own any mini plates at this point.

With a critical eye, the beans are too large for the 1:12 scale (although they felt tiny!) and they’re too pale. They needed more colour before mixing into the sauce.

Baguettes

I copied an online tutorial for these, step-by-step. I spent time trying to get the ‘baked’ affect by using different browns on the high points vs. the recesses. I shaved paint from solid pastel blocks and mixed them with water to get different shades. Shown here with a 5p coin, for scale.

Left: Fimo soft, white polymer clay

Right: Fimo liquid polymer, Fimo varnish and a selection of pastel paints