making doll furniture out of dough?

Question

i'm doing a project where i have to make a house and furniture miniature sized for school. i have the house done but i want to make the furniture out of dough. what is the proportion of flour to water in order for the dough to be good enough? tips on making the furniture?

Answer 1

Salt Dough

Ingredients
4 cups flour
1 cup salt
1-1/2 cups hot water (from tap)
2 teaspoons vegetable oil (optional)

Mix the salt and flour together, then gradually add the water until the dough becomes elastic. (Some recipes call for 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil at this point.) If your mixture turns out too sticky, simply add more flour. If it turns out too crumbly, simply add more water. Knead the dough until it’s a good consistency.

If you want colored dough, mix food coloring, powdered drink mix, or paint into the water before adding it to the dry ingredients. Or you can paint your creations after baking them at 200 degrees. Baking times will vary depending on the size and thickness of the object, but make sure that all of it is hard. If the dough starts to darken before cooking is complete, cover with aluminum foil. Painted keepsakes will need to be sealed on all sides with clear varnish or polyurethane spray.

You can store your salt dough in a sealed container in the refrigerator, but usually not more than a couple of days.

Answer 2

There are lots of lessons and tips on making miniature furniture with polymer clay on this page at my site:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/miniatures.htm
(... click on FURNITURE and on FURNISHINGS...)

You could use most any type of "clay" though.

Salt dough clay is one. Bread clay would be another and would allow finer detail if you want that.
Other "air-dry" clays you could *buy* would be Celluclay (one color, bumpy), Creative Paperclay (one color, smooth), Makin's Clay, and others.
Or you could buy polymer clay ... to keep the cost down you could get white "Sculpey" or flesh-colored "SuperSculpey" (both in boxes). Those could be painted over with acrylic paints, or can be colored while raw with artist's oil paints, or small amounts of acrylic paints and in other ways (...polymer clays are baked in a home oven at about 275 degrees for 15-30 min. on average --this "cures" them and makes them hard, not simply speeding up drying since polymer clays never "dry" like air-dry clays will).

If you want more lessons on miniatures to make from "clay," check these pages too:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/houses_structures_gingerbread.htm
http://glassattic.com/polymer/Christmas.htm
http://glassattic.com/polymer/Halloween_etc.htm


HTH, and have fun!

Diane B.