Making Faux Stone Walls in Miniature

To make faux stone walls, you do not have to have a pasta machine. To make a more dressed stone, it helps. Very nice stone with lots of character can be made with not perfectly thick slices. Granitex stone clays are easy to work with no pasta machine. The others may need some inclusions or a surface treatment to get a realistic looking stone.

1. Run clay through pasta machine on thickest setting or roll out in about 1/4" thickness.

2. If using a pasta machine, place on table and stack in two layers.

3. I use telephone wire cut in lengths of stone sections and lay across clay. You can use twine, yarn, rubberbands or anything that gives the look you want.

4. Use brayer to roll across wire pressing into the clay. This makes your rows of stone. If you are going for a dressed stone, small knitting needles will stay straight. If undressed, the waviness of the wire gives it the natural look.

5. Using the end of a knitting needle or similar item, make vertical marks between the rows from the wire. On each row, slightly offset the vertical marks so you do not have a straight line across the two rows. If building a real wall of stone or brick, this is important. If the vertical lines are right above each other across the horizontal rows, there will be a weakness in the wall. I have found this to be true even when working with polymer clay.

6. Using a texture of some sort, you can pounce some marks into the clay to give a more natural appearance. Again the type of texture chosen and how evenly spaced gives the look of either dressed stone or as found. I am using a plastic texture sheet and a brayer to get my texture.

7. Cut out some end pieces so you can fit the sections together so they will not have a vertical line going from top to bottom. Join the pieces together like putting a puzzle together. When joining the sections together, use the knitting needle to press a line in the clay to match the other lines.

8. Using TLS mixed with tinting powders (I use Peal-ex Pearlescent Powders.), brush the solution gently onto the layer of clay. Using a baby wipe, wipe evenly across the top without smooshing the clay. You can remove as much as you like to get the look you want. Here are samples of heavy TLS with none removed and then with a little removed and then with TLS in the grout lines and the textured areas only. This TLS solution also makes your stone harder and more durable.

Making Faux Carved Wood from Polymer Clay

These instructions are for making a faux carved wood look with whatever faux wood that you wish to use. Most faux wood can be made in several different ways and usually involve caning. There are several tutorials for this on the internet. So after you make your "wood", these instructions are for applying the wood layers in order to make the item appear to have been carved from a piece of the wood. I am making wooden church doors with a relief design from polymer clay.

1. I have sculpted my figure in relief. This gives me an idea of how the clothing flows on the body.

2. I then began layering strips of extruded clay where the folds of the garment would be.

3. I took my strips of wood (layers of clay run through the pasta machine on a medium thin setting) and then began layering them from top to bottom. I kept the grain of the wood going in the same direction.

4. For this faux wood carving, I want the head and hands to appear to have been made out of another material so I am not covering them with the wood grain and I am letting the layers of clay go under the hands.

I will post some pictures of other ways to use this technique to make it look like water flowing. Can be used in faux wood carving technique or with other colors for water.

Here is a finished side of the door.