The Joyful Crafter: Chibi Swap

Last July, the Clay Friends Society Philippines did their first swap / challenge. The challenge was to create 6 wonderful chibis made out of polymer clay. The participants can make their projects at any size, design and type as long as the colors used is limited to just five - - including the colors used for skin and hair.

At first I thought of making a chibi similar to the one I created a few months back which I am now using as paper weight at work.

But the hubby said that it would be too time consuming considering that I already have a lot of things to do aside from the chibis, so I thought of making one of my favorite -- the doctor chibi.

The doctor chibi is about 2" tall. But since I wanted to challenge myself to make really small chibis -- about an inch or even smaller using Nendo polymer clay. I opted to create something different, something smaller...

Taking into account the clay artists who once told me that they find it hard to make chibis using my clay, it challenged me more to come up with a really small but cute chibi using Nendo. And here's what I came up with... my flower girls!

I made them right after my workshop with my friend Thina. I called them "flower girls" because they reminded me of a tulip while I was working on them. If you look at them from the bottom up, their dress looked like petals of tulips.

They are about an inch tall while the one with white headband measures less! Ü I also applied the fairy wings I learned from the workshop. More about the workshop soon in another post. Ü

What I learned from the challenge:

1. I realized that a really good clay artist, whatever the brand of clay s/he is using, will still be able to come up with really nice and one of a kind projects. It's more on the level of the skill of the artist. This challenge made me all the more determined to hone my skill on this craft. Ü

2. It's really a skill to be able to make at least 3 similar projects! I had a hard time making them all look alike... That's why I really have nothing but admiration to all participants who was able to make very similar chibis for the swap. But still thanks to the challenge, I was able to discover several ways to be able to make identical projects!

3. This challenge opened my eyes more to the beauty of my clay... ♥ It made my work super easy for me!

sorting the items from the 21 members who participated in the swap

Yes that's me busy packing. Because of the number of items I had to sort, I took the entire floor on one side of the bedroom while the hubby kept the little princess busy. That day was really a mess... but a lot of fun too!

And here's a photo of our works all together... Really really lovely indeed.