A sock monkey tutorial you might find interesting :o)

I did this today, while I was making some sock monkey earrings. I thought you guys might like to see a step by step on how easy it is to work with clay!
These instructions are to make a pair of sock monkey earrings.
Supplies needed:
polymer clay
black, red, white, brown, grey
seed beads
earring backs of your choice
sculpting tools (optional)
clear nailpolish

Work in a clean flat area, the kitchen table is a good place. Its a good idea to use a piece of scrap clay and roll it around on your hands (the white clay) to get dirt and lint off. You may think your hands are clean until you start sculpting!
Step one:
Mixing your clay. To make the main portion of your monkeys, you can custom design the shade either light to dark of grey or brown. I use a big piece of brown, a small piece of black, white, and grey. Begin to knead these colors together. In the beginning it will look like this:







After mixing to a uniform color it will look like this: (and it might take a little while)







After mixing your clay, roll it into a long piece. Pinch off 2 balls (lol, sorry) about the size of a dime. These are the heads. Next, pinch off four little pieces to be the ears, you can roll these into balls as well for now.







Now you apply the two small balls on each side of the head. Press lightly, the clay sticks to itself! Now, you can make indentions in the ears to make them look like ears. If you don't have the available tool, use a sharpened pencil. Press lightly two times on each ear.
Next, pinch off four pieces of white the size of half a dime. These are for the mouth and the top of the head. Roll them into uniform balls. To apply these, take one ball and squeeze it into a flat circle. Gently apply this to the front of the face. Take your thumb and roll it around the edges of the white to make it smooth and to be sure it is securly applied.
Repeat this step for the hat.
It will look like this:
the







Now, pinch off four pieces of red. These need to be a little smaller than the previous white balls you made. On two of the pieces of red, make them even a little bit smaller, for the tassle on the hat. Now take the biggest piece and flatten it for the mouth. Gently apply it to the center of the white mouth. Take the smaller red ball and press gently to the top of the head.
It should look something like this at this point:


















Now you have to make the monkey smile! Use your tool, or a knife, and make him smile!
Now hes smiling, but hes still blind. Next, take a seed bead on the end of the pencil or a needle
and gently place it in the eye area.
It should look something like this:






Now he can see and hes almost happy. But he thinks his hat doesnt quite look like a pom pom yet. SO, use the end of your pencil, and press lightly all over the top of the hat ball to make little indentions.






This picture shows him without his eyes, but yours will already have eyes by now :o) And I would suggest using black seed beads, for this tutorial I used what I had on hand which were teal. But black really looks better. So now you monkey is finished. You can add any jump ring to the back of the head, just press gently in. Then you can the "bead head" to french wires or any earring types. You can even flatten the back of the head a little a glue it to posts if you would like to have studs.
Now you have to bake them. Bake them in an oven that is preheated to 275 degrees on a glass pan. They need to bake about 10 minutes. Watch them carefully, if they look brown at all, take them out immediatly. (well the white part anyway). But if you set the timer, just set it for ten minutes and take them out right away. Let them cool, which wont take too long.
Next, add a coat of clear nail polish to make them sparkle, and walaaa! your done! Pretty easy right??





Now, please excuse this little guys eyes, not only are they blue, lol they are a tad cross eyes, but we luv him anyway! He was built in a hurry :o)