Clay Craft: Banana Fridge Magnet

Difficulty: Easy

Age: 5 and up (with help from adults as necessary)

Description:
Are you thinking of how to add some colours to the kitchen yet lack of ideas? How about a hand-made banana on the fridge?


What you'll need:
1. Yellow colour iClay ( 7 parts)
2. Red colour iClay (1/4 part)
3. Black colour iClay (1/8 part)
4. 1 sharp end toothpick
5. 1 magnet (1cm in diameter)
6. Strong adhesive/glue
** One part of the clay is about the size of a small marble with 1cm in diameter.

How to make it:
1. First of all, prepare some brown clay. Mix 2 parts of yellow clay with a quarter part of red clay, with a one-eighth part of black clay. Knead the clay until the colour is even and it will turn into brown clay. If it is the brown colour you like, it's ready to be used; if not, just fine tune the colour needed by adding the colour little-by-little.

2. Get one part of the yellow clay, knead and mould it into a round shape, then slowly mould it into water drop shape.

3. Repeat the process for the other 4 parts of the yellow clay.

4. Take a small pinch of the clay out of the brown clay from Step 1. Put aside to be used as the tip at the end of each banana. Knead and mould the rest of the brown clay into a ball shape, then into a long cylinder shape like a small sausage.

5. Use the toothpick, make some lines along the length of the brown clay. Make some tiny holes at the two end of the clay.

6. From the small pinch of brown clay, divide it into 5 small parts, make each into a tiny ball shape as round as you can.

7. Attached one small brown ball clay to one water drop of yellow clay, use the toothpick, push the brown clay on the middle into the yellow clay. Slowly turn and pull out the toothpick and the brown clay will stay with the yellow clay.

8. Repeat Step 7 for the rest of the water drop yellow clay and the tiny brown clay.

9. Now, join all the 5 yellow bananas together, be careful to do this slowly as it sticks immediately and cannot be detached if mistakenly done. Then carefully put the brown clay from Step 4 on top as the main tip of the banana. Do all these gently as the shape of the clay can easily be spoilt if force is applied unnecessary. Leave the clay aside for it to be air dried.

10. Finally, when the clay is dry enough to be handled easily, glue the magnet to the back of the banana using strong adhesive, and it is DONE!


Tips:
1. Clean your hands before you start handling the clay as the clay will turn dirty easily. It is also advisable to make sure your hands are clean after the brown clay is prepared before you start handling the yellow clay.

2. You can also use arcylic plastic blocks or CD plastic covers to mould the clay instead of bare hands that usually get dirty easily.

3. One additional advantage of using the arcylic plastic blocks or CD plastic covers is to prevent extra fine lines to be formed accidentally in the shape of the clay.

4. If the clay is too wet to handle, leave it a while in the air and only work on it when the stickiness is appropriate.

5. The water drop clay on Step 2 & Step 3 need not  be perfectly sized and shaped. Real bananas come in different sizes and shapes anyway, just make sure these are not too extremely odd in size and shape will do.