Alright, so this is what I made for my boyfriend's birthday:
We both play an online game called Plants VS Zombies, and while brainstorming with a friend I decided to make figures from the game out of polymer clay and then to make a wooden chessboard. The whole process took me about a month, but was well worth it! He loved it.
The above picture is the first figure I made. I used two types of plants from the game [each made up an opposing side]: day plants, and night plants. There are also water plants but they're a little more complicated to make. The Chomper is from the day side and I also had to add coloured floral wire after baking to create the stem. There are a few other day plants for which I had to do this. I added after baking rather than before because floral wire is covered with coloured plastic and I was concerned the plastic may melt during the baking process. I made a hole in the base and in the headpiece before baking for the stem to fit in and glued it with industrial strength adhesive.
I really like this adhesive, it provides a very strong bond with a bit of flexibility, which is unlike crazy glue and why I prefer the E6000 to it.
There are definitely a few things I would like to do differently. I bought some circle fondant cutters to cut out the bases but realized when I brought them home that they were a bit too big so I had to mold them by hand due to a time constraint [I really needed to get started THAT night]. I wish they looked more professional but everyone's telling me I'm being too picky, we're always harder on the work when it's our own though!
The board is made out of oak, made by me with a little help from my dad [I'm not that great around circular saws]. I didn't really prime it, I just put on a ton of coats of the light green acrylic paint. I used Folkart and Americana paint on both the board and box used to hold the pieces.
I bought the box from Michaels and primed it with white acrylic before painting it with the green. I used white first because the box was patterned already and the colours were a bit dark. I knew it was going to take quite a few coats to cover and was afraid I would not have enough of the green to do it.
I used painter's tape in a criss-crossed pattern to create the squares on the top of the board. I only did one coat [again, time constraint] but would've liked to do two and make the dark green more opaque.
I finished both the board and box with Krylon glaze. Since I did this in my basement, I didn't have ventilation other than a very slow moving fan. Don't do what I did, using spray glaze/paint without ventilation is NOT a good idea. Normally I would do this sort of thing outside, but it's the winter and so I was unable to.
And that was my project! It was very labour intensive but like I said, totally worth it in the end and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I think it goes without saying, but as a crafter it really makes a difference when you make something for someone who will really appreciate and cherish it. I'm leaving the link to my Flickr photo album for anyone who would like to take a look at additional pictures, there are so many that I don't want to photo dump them here.
Click for more pictures!
Click here to check out Plants VS Zombies!
Happy Crafting~
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