eyeballs (there, I said it.)

Amigurumi typically has button or embroidery eyes. Creepy cute recommends polymer clay, so polymer clay it is.

I bought my clay at Michael's, in black and translucent white as suggested. I've never bought this stuff before so I didn't really know the difference between the brands. I randomly chose one and, after completing Ninja, made a set of black eyeballs for him. It took me about 40 minutes or so to go through the whole process.

After Ninja, I figured it would be more efficient to make multiple eyeballs at once then just keep a Ziploc bag of eyes in my Amigurumi supplies. I had also decided I wanted more than black and black/white eyes-- especially for Project #4 which I was already planning at that point. I returned to Michael's only to realize that the brand I'd initially chosen really didn't carry colors that were appropriate for eyes. The alternate brand did but this clay had completely different baking instructions. I bought three colors (mossy green, gray-blue, light brown) and some more translucent white, thinking I didn't want to mix two clays with different instructions.

At home, I invested more than two hours making eyeballs. I made multiple sets in each color in the new clay, then plain black and black/white.

It sounds so simple. Well, the plain black is simple.

• Roll
• Smoosh
• Bake

Any color + white = notsomuch.

The process for mixed colors is more like:

• Roll white
• Smoosh
• Roll color in a ball that will smoosh to just the right size so that it mostly fills the white but still leaves a border.
• Smoosh.
• Cut a pie-wedge out of the color with an exacto-knife.
• Lift colored, wedged clay from kitchen table without 1) gauging a pit in the table 2) altering the shape of the clay 3) smearing clay all over the place.
• Carefully lay colored clay evenly on white clay and gently press in but not too much!!!
• Make two minuscule white clay dots and place strategically on colored portion of eyeball to give the illusion of glistening.
• Bake
• Scream because translucent white in the new brand apparently turns more translucent yellow than actual white and the eyeballs look disgusting.
• Throw away eyeballs.

So after wasting all that time, I decided to go out on a limb and mix my clays. I made a single set of green eyes with new green clay and old white. I followed the directions for the white, figuring there was more of it and the white was the problem with the last batch and they turned out perfectly. Lesson learned.

Anyway, the point of the post is this: Save the experimental stuff for days when you just don't have anything better to do. Or you've remembered your meds. That helps too.