As usual, "I wasn't going to enter, but..." I was looking at those soaps with the mermaid tails in the tops. I have no interest in buying a mold for such a thing. Suddenly, it occurred to me that if I used soap dough, I could have any size and shape as I want! They wouldn't even have to be mermaid tails! I'm all about customizing. So, after a detour through the world of squirrels (I'll post them in the other thread), I ended up back at mermaids. The idea for this lady came from a video tutorial on making a fondant mermaid cake topper.
The dough is the Sorcery Soap recipe. I divided and colored the dough (cocoa powder brown, red oxide/TD pink, AC/TD gray) and bagged them. When I wanted blue or purple, I just worked mica into a little if the gray clay. I also added a few drops of peppermint, just to enhance my own enjoyment while working with the dough.
The dough feels great in the hands. It holds it's shape nicely while working it. A little corn starch in a make-shift pouncing bag helped it not get too sticky. The blessing/curse: once you leave the piece you're working on alone, it starts to set up. My "open time" was not very long at all. With some of the polymer clays, they are so soft that the design is easily lost while handling. Others are so stiff that they are hard to model. This was just right, and the fact that it firmed up as I went was a benefit, since I wasn't accidentally destroying what I made as I went. But, my first attempt at hair got hard too fast and just broke into pieces.
I didn't use a lot of my clay tools, but I was glad I had them on hand. I made a little "paint" from isopropyl alcohol and TD and AC etc for the eyes and mouth. A tiny star-shaped clay cutter made my sea stars. My youngest, Pax, gave me the idea for the octopus tentacles. On the advice in the tutorial, I used a spaghetti noodle to anchor her head on to her body. I think that's everything you need to know?
