In this guide, I will show you how to make cute mushrooms using polymer clay easily. This entire guide will be structured in easy-to-follow steps. Let´s get started.
Step 1: Get Your Materials
You will need:
- Polymer Clay (I used white soft FIMO polymer clay)
- Some basic sculpting tools
- An oven to bake the clay
- (Optional) Fake Moss
- A primer
- Some acrylic paints
- ModPodge
- Tissue Paper
(Optional) If you want to add LEDs and know how to solder:
- LED filament (If you know how to solder)
- Cables
- Soldering iron
- Solder
Step 2: Condition the Clay
Conditioning the clay will make it workable. Most fresh Fimo clay will be workable right out of the box, but some older clay may need to be conditioned first.
Conditioning can be done by repeatedly kneading the clay until it is soft enough.
Alternatively, you can run the clay through a pasta machine a couple of times to condition it properly. I have a free Polymer clay sculpting course that explains all this stuff more in-depth.
Step 3: Make the Mushroom Stem
The stem is just a simple worm that is slightly tapered. Roll the clay out in your hands or on a table, and then taper it on one side by rolling the clay between your fingers a little more.
If you want to make the glowing mushrooms, then you need to add a pair of cables to the stem.
The cables will not adhere well to the polymer clay by itself, so you need to either wrap the cables in some insulating tape or in some thin wire to ensure that the clay has something to stick to.
Finally, bend the stems into the final form. I bend them into a U-shape because I want to attach my mushrooms to the wall of a lamp. But you can also leave the stems straight if you want your mushrooms to come out of the ground.
Step 4: Make the Mushroom Caps
The mushroom caps can be easily made from a ball of clay.
Use your thumbs to flatten the ball and shape the clay into a disk-like shape. Make sure to form the clay into a dome, or your mushroom will look weird.
Step 5: Bake the Clay
Follow the instructions on the clay packaging to bake the clay.
We will glue the mushroom parts together later.
Let the clay cool down fully after baking it. It will be brittle initially, but it will be rigid once it has cooled down fully.
Step 6: Assemble the Mushrooms
Use some superglue to glue one stem and one mushroom cap together.
This is also the step where I added the LEDs for the glowing mushrooms. I used LED filament, which is a flexible type of LED that is commonly used in LED light bulbs. They run on 3.3 volts. So I only need two AA batteries to power the LEDs.
I glued the LEDs on the inner side of the mushrooms next to the step using some superglue.
I also soldered the cables to the LEDs.
Step 7: Paint the Mushrooms
Finally, it´s time to paint the mushrooms.
Before painting polymer clay, you first have to apply a primer. A primer is a type of paint that will adhere to most surfaces and prepare the surface for acrylic paints. The paint will peel off if you apply acrylic paints directly to polymer clay.
I used some masking tape to protect the LEDs from the paint.
After the primer has dried, you can finally paint the mushrooms.
I painted the mushrooms red, brown, and violet. But you can paint them any color you want.
You can add funny patterns, dots, or just leave the mushroom caps blank.
Once the mushrooms are painted, you can add some details to the inner side of the mushrooms.
I used some tissue paper and ModPodge to add these details.
Simply apply some ModPodge with a brush.
Then apply some tissue paper and use a brush and some more ModPodge to glue the tissue paper to the mushroom cap.
You can use this method to add some details to the stem as well. Let the ModPodge dry and with that, you are done.
Step 8: Making the Lamp
The mushrooms are done now, and you can leave them here.
But if you want to, you can also use the mushrooms to make a lamp. Or simply glue them to a piece of bark and dress them with some fake moss.
I used some hot glue to glue them to a 3D-printed lamp. I then connected all of the cables and hooked them up to a battery-pack.
I then glued some fake moss to the lamp to cover up the hot glue.
I used some ModPodge to glue the fake moss in place. The best way to make the moss look realistic is to mix different adjacent colors of moss together before gluing the moss.
And here is the final result.
