Make Faux Bricks With Poly Clay and Cheesecloth

Kaye
by Kaye
4 Materials
$10
5 Days
Medium
To create faux bricks and hopefully add some "authenticity" to my family history wall, I decided to combine ideas from two Hometalk posts: Beth's from New Hampshire and mine.

Combining my (https://www.hometalk.com/diy/decorate/walls/make-a-faux-antique-finish-with-cheesecloth-35043435?r=2) aging with cheesecloth with Beth's polymer clay tiles (https://www.hometalk.com/diy/decorate/rooms/make-your-own-tiles-out-of-polymer-clay-35963220?r=2) helped me create faux bricks to Velcro onto the wall. Additionally, I could not find where you could only purchase 3 or 4 of the bricks and I didn't want fifty of them!
I started by kneading new and old polymer clay bits together and after a few tries got them into the general shape of a brick. The next step was to reinforce the poly clay by rolling in a layer of cheesecloth. Poly clay is wonderful for so many ideas but can be rather brittle.
The general size of a brick is 3" wide x 8" long. I didn't want the edges to be perfect, but I wanted to get fairly close in size.


I used two stacked tongue depressors on each side of the clay to approximate the depth I thought I would need (you could use Popsicle sticks just as well).
After quite a few starts and stops and more poly clay, I got what I thought was a good size.
I used the non cheesecloth side as the front of the brick. I added texture by using a flat stenciling brush and gouging a few lines in the poly clay.


I lucked into this really nice baking guide (http://www.earthguild.com/products/riff/rpolymer.htm) to help me figure our time and temperature. My oven runs a little hot so I used 30 minutes at 240 degrees. As I was worried about warping, I used my pizza stone to lay the clay on while baking.
After it completely cooled, I used acrylic and chalk paints to layer lots of color on the bricks. I used Burnt Sienna, and Brick Red as a base, let dry, and then sponged on Dark Orange and Truffle Brown.
I wanted to make the brick look like it had been found in the wall. I had a bag of white grout left from a project and decided to try adding acrylic paint tint it gray. It took the color better than I hoped.


Then I placed my now painted brick on an old piece of glass. I used glass hoping the grout couldn't adhere and I could pop the brick off after it hardened.
Last, I gave the brick a good coating of matte Mod-Podge to make sure it stayed together.


Then using thin Velcro adhesive strips, I adhered it to the wall and kept my fingers crossed it would hold.
I tried making a couple more and added them to the wall - not sure if I like them or not.


Thanks.
Suggested materials:
  • Acrylic and Chalk Paint   (Craft Store)
  • Polymer Clay   (Craft store)
  • Grout   (Hardware Store)
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