Introduction: How to Make a Miniature Bowl of Ice Cream!

About: I'm Kaydee, and I simply live for creating things. The physicality of taking something that was nothing, and turning it into something is so rewarding. I figured this would be the perfect place to share the …

This itty bitty bowl of ice cream is just about 9/16th of an inch, yet it still looks good enough to eat! With three kinds of ice cream, cherries and chocolate syrup, this is one delicious miniature for you to enjoy!

Materials:
Polymer Clay/ Air Dry Clay:
-Red
-Green
-Brown
-Pink
-White
-Tan/Beige
Marble(to make bowl)
Toothpick(to texture)
Brown Paint
Glossy Finish

Optional:
Pre-Cooked White clay

Step 1: Step One: Making the Bowl & Cherries

Now you can't just have your ice cream melting everywhere can you?

No, you need a nice little bowl for your ice cream and all of it's fixings to rest in.

To make the bowl, get a marble or bead around the size you want your finished ice cream to be, make sure your bead or marble is made of a material that can withstand being put into the oven if you are using polymer clay.

Squish white clay onto the bottom of the marble and work the clay up the sides, you only need half of the marble covered but go over a little bit and then scrape off the excess with your toothpick. This will give a cleaner non-tapered edge.

To give your bowl a flat bottom press the covered bottom down onto your work surface, this will prevent your bowl from rolling around.

Now bake your bowl according to the directions of your clay, you can under cook it because it just needs to be firm enough to put the ice cream into, and you will bake it again.

To make the stems for the cherries mix a little bit of brown into a little bit of green to get a sort of deep olive color, stretch it out into two long stems. You can either attach them together to make a pair of cherries, or you can make two separate stems.

Then form two tiny cherries out of red clay and stick the stems onto them.

Step 2: Step Two: Making the Ice Creams

Decide which flavors of ice cream you would like to use, for mine I decided on a Rocky Road, Vanilla Caramel Swirl, and Strawberry Swirl.

To get the swirl of colors in your ice cream, roll the colors you are going to use into logs. Stick the logs together and roll them together, after rolling, fold the logs in half and roll again. Repeat this until you have a log with stripes of colors throughout and then roll them into a ball.

For the strawberry I mixed pink and light pink. If you wanted to add chunks of strawberry you could get pre-baked red clay and cut it into little chunks and stick them on the outside of your ice cream ball.

For the vanilla I mixed white with tan to make a sort of vanilla caramel swirl. If you want to make plain or french vanilla, still mix a tiny bit of yellow or tan thoroughly into the white and you can add pepper or ground black clay to add the flecks of vanilla bean.

For the chocolate I mixed dark brown with a light brown made from brown and tan, and then rolled the clay in chunks of white clay to give it the appearance of marshmallows, you can also add precooked tan clay to make the nuts that would also be in it.

After your bowl is done baking you can pop it off of the marble, it shouldn't be very hard but you can help it by poking something through the thinnest part of the bottom of the bowl, it is easily fixable.

Step 3: Step Three: Texturing You Ice Cream & Filling the Bowl

I forgot to get a few of the steps to this part, but it is pretty easy to understand.

To texture your ice cream scoops use either a toothpick or a needle and in circular motions scrape the surface of the clay. This action will pull up tiny "crumbs" of the clay, if it doesn't work quite right, you can put your ice cream into the fridge to let it cool a bit before texturing. You only need to texture one side of the ball as the rest will be in the bowl. I usually push the crumbs down a bit and then use my nail or something thin and curved like a piece of paper to add "scoop marks."

Once you've textured all three balls roll the un-textured side into a short cone and arrange them in your bowl. You will see there is a lot of empty space under your ice cream, you can leave it be, but I usually add chunks of either white clay, or extra of what would look like the ice cream and stick in into the spaces between the scoops and push them into the bowl with a tooth pick.

After getting your bowl how you'd like it, cook it according to the directions or let it dry if you are using air dry clay, cook the cherries as well but not on the ice cream, we will put them on after baking.

Step 4: Step Four: Toppings & Done!

Now that your ice cream is baked and cooled, you can add your toppings.

For mine I decided on a chocolate syrup, and cherries. You can top your ice cream with all sorts of stuff, you can make tiny sprinkles, nuts, caramel sauce, whipped cream. Anything you could ever want on your ice cream.

To make a chocolate sauce mix a small amount of brown paint with a glossy finish. This will make it look all shiny, melty and delicious, this also act as the glue for your cherries. Drizzle your sauce on in a realistic manner,  for mine I put it in the well of the center of the ice creams and had it drip down the sides.

Stick your cherries on top and wa-lah! You're done! Just let your sauce dry and you're ready to impress everyone with your itty bitty bowl of ice cream.

These look fabulous on the table in a doll house, or as a tiny prop, or just as an adorable decoration. You can also make it into a charm by adding in a loop when before you bake your bowl.

Enjoy your new tiny ice cream, just remember, no matter how tasty it looks, you probably shouldn't eat it!

(To show just how impressively tiny this ice cream is, that is a Skittle next to it!)

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