Mushroom Polymer Clay Tutorial

We're going to make a simple polymer clay mushroom in this polymer clay tutorial using three colors of Papa's Clay.

Here's what you will need to get started:

• White Papa's Clay
• Yellow Papa's Clay
• Red Papa's Clay
• A pasta machine, roller, or other rolling tool
• X-ACTO knife or sharp blade
• Old toothbrush

If you don't have any of these tools, it's okay, you can use all sorts of things you have lying around the house like toothpicks, needles, pens, etc.

Step 1 - Condition the Clay

Papa's Clay conditions differently than other types of clay. It just needs some gentle rolling and heat from your hands. Make sure to condition your clay before you start working with it. Small pieces take just a few seconds to condition and big pieces can take up to a minute or two. You can use a hair dryer to condition it even quicker. Your scrap pieces should be pretty quick to condition, but you might need a bit longer depending on how much white clay you need.

Step 2 - Mix some White Polymer Clay and Yellow Polymer Clay

Take a good chunk of white and is a little bit of yellow and mix them together so that you get a nice off-white color you'll notice that the colors are mushrooms are never exactly white, but are usually off-white.

Step 3 - Make the polymer clay mushroom stem

Take your combined white and yellow clay and roll it into a cylinder. This will be the stem of your polymer clay mushroom.

Gently place the stem in your hand and run a toothbrush up and down the stem to give it some textures.

This is a great time to bake what you've made so far so that it doesn't get ruined in any subsequent steps.

Step 5 - Add the ridge to the clay mushroom stem

After baking, take some more of your conditioned clay mix and run it through a pasta machine at the very thinnest level. Cut out a strip of your Papa's Clay and wrap it around the stem so that it looks like a ridge.

Blend the top of the ridge into your stem. Gently brush the ridge that you just added with your toothbrush to add some additional texture to your mushroom.

It's a lot easier to add the ridge before you add the mushroom cap. Don't make the mistake that we made.

This is another great time to bake what you have so far.

Step 6 - Make the clay mushroom cap

Take some red polymer clay and put it on a big ball stylus if you have one. If not, then you can use your finger or something similar. Smooth out the sides and the top of it. You should have something that looks like a sphere that has been cut in half.

Bake your polymer clay again so that you can do the next step easily without smashing anything.

Step 7 - Add the bottom of the mushroom cap

Take your left over off-white clay and push it into the hollow of your mushroom cap.

Then, take an x-acto knife or something similar to drag lines from the outside in to the center of the underside.

Take a very small amount of super glue and put it on the stem and push the stem into the underside of the mushroom cap.

You should bake your polymer clay at this point.

Step 8 - Add the white spots to the mushroom cap

Take more of your off-white polymer clay and make a bunch of little balls out of it. Press the balls into the top of the mushroom. You can add a very thin layer of transparent liquid clay to the top of the mushroom to help everything stick.

Use one of your tools to break the small dots up so they look like they've been torn or shredded. This detail will give a lot of life to your mushroom to make it look even more realistic.

Step 9 - Bake your polymer clay mushroom

Bake your mushroom for the last time and you will have an easy polymer clay mushroom made out of Papa's Clay.

Check out the video tutorial here: