Can you use real food to make dollhouse miniature food(s)?

Question

I recently bought some craft supplies to make miniature cakes/desserts (ie: Polymer Clay, Acrylic Gel, Acrylic Paints, Wooden "cake" shapes)...and I was wondering if it was possible to use real food like cocoa powder or crushed nuts to make my mini desserts look real. Of course, I would seal them to avoid bugs and such.

If not, what can I use to achieve really realistic looking desserts?

Thanks :D

Answer 1

I wouldn't recommend it.  A substitution for cocoa powder is shaved brown chalk.  Crushed nuts, use beige colored pastels, crushed to the size you want. Powdered sugar, shaved white chalk or pastel.  You can use chalk or pastels for texture.  If you want shaved chocolate, take your brown clay and an X-acto knife and thinly shave off pieces.  Curl slightly by rolling between your index finger and thumb. Get the idea?

P.S. If you add white glue to paint, you can make icing. You may have to play a bit with the consistancy so it will dry, but you will get it. Or you could shave chalk and add it to glue to make colored icing.

Answer 2

Some "real" foods can be used on top of or even inside polymer clay ("inclusions"), but you'd want to avoid any inside the clay that weren't totally dry (no water) especially.  Spices and dried herbs, however, can easily be used.

Instead of foods though, you can use various kinds of powders, scrapings, and even liquid polymer clay or pre-baked bits of solid clay to convincingly simulate chopped nuts, powdered sugar or cocoa, sprinkles, chocolate chips, "browned tops," and many other embellishments for the mini foods or for the ingredients that might show up in them.  Frostings, icings, whipped cream, gravies, jellies, etc., can also be made with those things.

For loads of lessons and tips on making miniature foods (including many sweets and chopped nuts for example), as well as links to many examples, check out these pages at my polymer clay "encyclopedia" website:

  

http://glassattic.com/polymer/miniatures...

(...click on the category "Foods"...)

http://glassattic.com/polymer/houses_str...

(...click on the category "Candies & Sweets..."

http://glassattic.com/polymer/inclusions...  

And if you want to paint over your clay after baking rather than building the color in while it's raw, check out this page:

http://glassattic.com/polymer/paints.htm

(...click on "Painting On Top of Clay"...)

And this page has lots of info on using clear liquid finishes if you want to add gloss, or to seal something you've put on top of the clay that might tarnish or oxidize or something that might come off:

http://glassattic.com/polymer/finishes.h...

(btw, acrylic gel medium can act as a sealer, and some comes in gloss too I think, but any acrylic medium will be more scratchable than the liquids we more commonly use as finishes on polymer clay)  

P.S.  If you're new to polymer clay, you might also want to check out some of the pages at my site on the "basics" of polymer clay... like baking it, basic tools to use, choosing brands by their "characteristics", using glues, etc.

http://glassattic.com/polymer/contents.h...

HTH,

Diane B.