Make Your Own Cold Porcelain
Make delicate creations using this easy to make homemade air dry clay. Cold porcelain dries to a beautiful and durable finish perfect for making tiny flowers and other miniatures.
What is Cold Porcelain?
Cold porcelain is not real porcelain, it got its name because the finished product looks like porcelain. It is an air dry clay that does not require firing or heating of any kind.
Cold porcelain when dry is slightly flexible and quite durable if it's sealed with a waterproof sealer, this makes it perfect for thin, delicate creations that would be fragile if made from other materials. Cold porcelain will be damaged or even dissolve if it's exposed to water without being properly sealed.
Cold porcelain works great for making delicately shaped Christmas ornaments like snowflakes, angels, or poinsettias.
Noadi's Cold Porcelain Recipe
There are many cold porcelain recipes available, this is the one I prefer because it gives good result and is non-toxic.Please supervise children while making or using this clay, non-toxic doesn't mean edible and pieces of cold porcelain could pose a choking hazard.
Ingredients:
1 cup pva glue (white glue like Elmer's Glue All)
1 cup cornstarch
1 tablespoon mineral oil (babyoil)
1 tablespoon lemon juice, witchhazel, or clove oil (these are natural preservative that help prevent mold, optional but recommended)
Directions:
1. Combine ingredients in pot. Don't use your good cookware for this because it can be hard to clean off.
2. Cook on low heat stirring constantly for 10 minutes or until dough forms and begins to come away from the sides.
3. Remove from heat and allow to cool until you can handle it.
4. Knead to a smooth clay consistency.
5. Store wrapped in plastic and refrigerated.
6. Color is translucent cream but can be tinted with acrylic or oil paint. White paint gives a true porcelain look. If you are using this clay with children make sure the paints are also non-toxic, some paint pigments contain toxic chemicals so check the label.
Model as you would any other clay, metal and smooth plastic work best for me as does keeping my fingers lubricated with a little mineral oil. The clay has a tendency to stick to wooden tools.
Keep any clay you are not using either wrapped in plastic or covered by a damp cloth to keep it from drying out while waiting to be used. If the clay it too sticky dust with a little more cornstarch and if it is a bit crumbly add a few more drops of mineral oil.
Dries in about 24 hours, expect 20-30% shrinkage.
Originally from Noadi's Art Tutorials
Other Cold Porcelain Recipes
- Cornstarch Based Clay Recipes & Tips from the Artful Crafter
- Cornstarch based modeling clay recipes can be used to make beautiful porcelain-like objects. Craft ideas to help you create original craft projects.
- Cold Porcelain
- First Impressions sells silicone molds, chocolate candy molds, wedding cake supplies, and more.
- Cake Decorators and Crafters: Cold Porcelain Recipe « Marivis Cake Decoration Blog
- Marivis Cake Decoration Blog « Cake Decorators: The Law of Cause in Effect in our kitchen?
Cake Decorators and Crafters: Cold Porcelain Recipe
Cold porcelain is a non edible paste that is used to make favors and ornaments.
I personally use it to make flower arrangements and - Corn Starch Based Clays
- Big list of recipes.
Buy Cold Porcelain
Don't want to make it yourself? You can buy cold porcelain too.
Cold Porcelain Videos
Fondant
Cold porcelain has much the same modeling properties as fondant or gum paste so anything you can make with fondant you can make with cold porcelain so long as you don't plan to eat it.-
Fondant Cake Decorating: It's Play-Doh for Grown Ups!
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Fondant is referred to by many as "Baker's Play-Doh" because of it's clay-like consistency and molding capabilities. It is a creamy confection that can be used as a filling or a covering for cakes, cookies, candies, and other sweets. The standard fo...
What Can You Do With Cold Porcelain?
Cold porcelain was originally invented for use in sculpting miniature flowers and that is still the most common use for it. Cold porcelain works bet for thin delicate creations such as flowers, leaves, feathers, fabric, etc.Because cold porcelain shrinks the only armatures that should be used with it are floral wires, cardstock, or a "soft" armature like styrofoam. To allow for even drying it really should be 1/2 inch (1cm) thick or less. Otherwise cold porcelain can be used much the same way as polymer clay.
Sealing Cold Porcelain
Cold porcelain and water are not friends so you really need to seal your cold porcelain creations for durability. I personally prefer spray sealers but brush on acrylic varnish also works well.Just about any clear spray or varnish will work but acrylic or polyurethane based sealers are best. If children are using cold porcelain either brush on acrylic varnish should be used or an adult should spray the sealer for them.
Krylon Sealers
These are two acrylic spray sealers that work great on cold porcelain
Cold Porcelain Projects
- Cold porcelain flower tutorials pictures from crafts photos on webshots
- Cold porcelain flower tutorials pictures published by suedsimpson
- Tutorial on Cold Porcelain
- Cold Porcelain techniques Tutorial : Chrysanthemums
- Cold Porcelain Rose
- Creating a cold porcelain rose.
- Basic "Cold Porcelain" Miniature Flower Making Tutorial
- Apple Blossoms are fairly simple structured flowers and will serve as a great example
for trying out some techniques to create miniature "Cold Porcelain" flowers. - Gina_Atkinson: Porcelain Flowers (1 of 4)
- The art of Cold Porcelain originated in Russia and became popular in the Victorian times throughout the world. The art of flower making was forgotten for a long time, but is now very popular again?it is probably also more successful due to the advancement of the basic ingredients.
- Linda Peterson Designs Art Buzz: Tips for working with Craft Porcelain
- It's not a new medium, though it is maybe an unfamiliar one. I first introduced this air dry clay on The Carol Duvall show a couple of years ago.
Cold Porcelain Books
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byCold Porcelain Photos
Small social creatures, hand-modelled on cold porcelain.
A piece in cold porcelain. Around 20 cm / 8".
A bunch of sweet pink and white flowers on glass vase - MADE TO ORDER & ...
A bunch of variety yellow flower on glass vase - MADE TO ORDER & TAKEN
Fairy Girl Commission piece I made last Christmas.
This is a photo I took as part of a series for a cold porcelain flower bouquet a...
A porta da frente...nao sei pq eu adoro portas verdes....
Mais uma casinha, essa aqui ta a venda. Eh feita com porcelana fria e uma textur...
Para meu amigo Danielfo, um deus ancestral numa versao bem bonitinha. Olhando el...
This is a photo I took as part of a series for a cold porcelain flower bouquet a...
This is a photo I took as part of a series for a cold porcelain flower bouquet a...
Handfelted brooch made from 100% merino wool with cold porcelain flower and Japa...
Handfelted brooch made from 100% merino wool with cold porcelain flower and Japa...
A small sculpture (20cm/ 8'') made in cold porcelain. More pictures on my
A qualidade da foto ta pessima, mas eu gosto dessa foto...
Leave Me A Note
steimannbernard wrote...
very well set lens:) well presented:)
5 stars!
Blak Prince
Posted October 01, 2008
Gandree wrote...
Wow, thanks for the recipe. I think I'll be back to try it once the gardening season slows down.
Posted September 23, 2008
Noadi wrote...
There are different formulations of cold porcelain out there and most likely she had a more flexible recipe than mine. It also could be that larger sheets of my cold porcelain could flex more, I've only created very small flowers with petals of around 1/4 inch. The great thing is that making cold porcelain is cheap so mix up a small batch and experiment a little!
Posted July 23, 2008
mozayko
Thank you for your prompt response!!! I once saw these flowers made out of this cornstarch based clay that made the petals very flexible and nothing would happen to them. I remember the lady who made them would flex completely the petals and they would go back to their original shape. It seemed like a plastic kind of thing. I thought cold porcelain was this material since it has the same cornstarch base. It's flexibility is as I am describing it or the material I saw is something else? The pictures you have of the flowers look exactly like the ones I saw. Where can I buy cold porcelain? Thanks!
Posted July 23, 2008
Noadi wrote...
It's slightly flexible, so if a petal is bent a little bit it will pop back to it's original position but bend it too much and it will break. You can add color mixing a few drops of acrylic or oil paint into the clay or paint it after it's dry.
Posted July 22, 2008
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