Crafts - Cute Bear Christmas Decoration

This week, I felt as though I should make something a little bit more festive for my crafts, and had originally planned to make Christmas cards. This plan was, however, quickly changed when I realised that I really couldn’t be bothered to make Christmas cards, so instead, I thought I would try using Polymer Clay again, this time to make a Christmas tree decoration. I looked around for some inspiration, but wanted something cute and easy mode, so I came up with this festive little bear.
To start with, I completely cleaned my hands and desk to try and minimize the amount of dust and dirt that would get picked up by the white clay. I then got a baking tray and piece of baking paper, as I decided it would be easiest to make my design right onto this.
For the base of the bear, I simply made the shape of each part of his body (two ears, two arms, two legs, main body and a head) and stuck them together with bake and bond glue. Many of the design I saw online just cut this shape from a single piece of clay; however I felt this would be overly fiddly, and I quite like the way that sticking each part together looks.
Once this was done, I inserted a little hoop between the bear’s ears, wiped it all over with a cotton bud dipped in rubbing alcohol (to remove all dust, dirt and finger prints), and then baked this part for around 10 minutes on 120oC. I found that this just made the base easier to work with when adding smaller details.
Once this had cooled, I made the scarf, which consists of red and green clay each being rolled into sausage shapes before being twisted together. I cut the amount required to cover the bear’s neck and stuck this down with bake and bond, and then cut another part of the spiral and stuck this down to look like part of the hanging scarf. For the ears, I just stuck down some small ovals of peach clay, and for the holly, I got two small circles of green, flattened each of them slightly and slightly cut them in the middle, thus making them look more like coffee beans. I stuck these either side of three small red balls.   
I then made the eyes, which is just two small circles of black clay flattened down in place, and the same for the nose. I then used the noses placement to position the cheeks, which are just two small balls of red clay which had been flattened.
I baked the whole thing again on 120oC for about 15 minutes, allowed it to cool, painted on the mouth, and then tied some red twine through the hoop. This is what I used to hang it from the Christmas tree with.


As a slight side note, I feel like it's clear within this post that I'm not sure how much detail I should give. I have no idea how to work this to make you guys happy, so if you want more detail on how I made this, have any questions, or want more posts like this, let me know. Whether that be by +1ing this page or leaving a tiny comment, I don't mind. I'd be more than happy to keep this as an reoccurring thing if it's what people want.

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