Sounds a lot fancier in French.   ‘Fake chocolate – arts and crafts’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

I said I would be doing arts and crafts today … two people I am fond of are having birthdays next week.  I thought it would be sweet to make their gifts.

Here’s what I did.

I like working with Sculpey – it doesn’t taste awful.  No, you shouldn’t be eating it – but you’ll see why it was in my mouth in the next picture.

So, you start by kneading and molding and sculpting – then, since  I think chocolates look more realistic if you take a bite out of them, you BITE ‘EM!

I decided one of the chocolates needed to have a coffee bean on top.  Pushing the creative envelope lol.

Here’s a closer look at each:

You bake them when you’re satisfied.  I had lost my instructions – so put them in the oven @ 275 degrees for half and hour – then checked on them every 5 or 10 minutes after that.

I was also painting boxes to put these in.  The whole premise of my gift was ‘For a Sweet Friend’ but I couldn’t just hand them a fake chocolate.

So here’s the boxes rough painted and adorned with a small mirror.  I figure they can use them for trinkets or jewelry afterwards.

And here are the boxes after a subtle paint job.

The hardest part about the process is waiting for the clay to cool down after baking it.  I’m impatient.  I want to paint immediately.

But, wait I did.

Then … the paint job.

Still have some touch up to do on the above ‘chocolate’ – but as impatient as I am, I had to blog too soon as well.

Now, today was REALLY REALLY windy.  My initial thought was, I can acrylic seal these items and they’ll dry in no time!

*Do not gloss your crafts in gale force winds! *  I had sealer in my eyes, on my hands, in my lungs.  Probably not a good thing – but parts that were never shiny are now shiny.

As for ‘drying in no time’ – that also came along with a smattering of dust and local flora. (There may even have been an ant or two stuck to my ‘drying in no time’ boxes.) Nice extra ‘texture’ for my pieces.  Live and learn.  Live and learn.

I’m working on the cards – I’ll draw and paint tomorrow.  And I really hope the recipients don’t read this post.  I should have started with *SPOILER ALERT*.  Oh well.

Here are the (almost) finished products.

I made a bracelet and the other box has a sentimental item in there too.

Homemade gifts say ‘Love’.  I hope they do anyway.  Just in case they didn’t, I made clay hearts too – they serve as gift tags

I’m so glad these ladies were born.  Definitely worth inhaling acrylic sealer for. x

Now, I’m going to brush my teeth for the 10th time and finish getting the clay out of them 😉