DIY Pizza Charm!

Look at how cute this guys is! 

I'm gonna teach you how to make one! I'm also gonna throw in some other toppings if these ones don't appeal to you. If this was my pizza it would probably be mostly artichoke hearts, I'm kind of obsessed. 

Ok! Let's learn! 

First off, you'll need some supplies, I would've taken a pic for you but, not gonna lie, my Sculpey is not exactly packaged and pretty. It's more like bags of multi-colored lumps. Anyway! You'll need various colors of bake-able Polymer clay such as Sculpey or Fimo. Grab yourself a crust color (I like to use a nude shade with a touch of yellow squished in) a red for the sauce, white for cheese and whatever colors you would like to use for your toppings. I'd suggest a dark brown and green, that way you can make snausage, shrooms, bacon, artichoke hearts and bell peppers. Oh! And some black if you want olives or yellow if you want pineapple! It's all up to you! 

You'll also want a screw hook eye, a rolling pin or jar to roll your clay out with, a needle for detail work and a cutting tool for shaping. (Make sure not to use kitchen utensils for this as Polymer clay is not food safe! Designate your clay tools and keep them away from food!)

Now, grab your pizza crust color and let's get started! 

This is definitely something that you need! 

Knead your pizza crust "dough" and then roll it into a ball. Then use a jar or roller to roll it out into a flat slab. 

Then use a knife to chop out a triangle shape. I give the top portion some squishes to flatten it out so I can roll the crust over. 

Then you'll wanna grab a little chunk of red/marinara and squish it into a rough triangle shape. You can always get creative and add your favorite sauce here, green for Pesto, white for Alfredo, whatever floats your boat!

I like to make sure my sauce isn't too even, it's more realistic that way. Now it's cheese time, I strongly recommend you take a moment for hand washing. That red Sculpey is lethal, it transfers onto everything! 

Roll out a thin rope of "cheese" and chop it into little pieces. Then pop them on your sauce in a slapdash fashion. 

Add even more cheese! Then it's time for toppings! 

Now, keep in mind these are my "interpretations" of toppings. You can make yours look like whatever you want! I'm not a clay pizza toppings expert. I started with pepperoni and snausage because they're the most generic and recognizable. For your pepperoni, just roll a reddish brown ball out and then give it a couple pricks with a needle. For the snausage, I made a dark brown smaller ball and put it on the pizza, then gave it a ton of needle jabs until it was the right texture. 

To form the mushroom you need to make a small ball of light brown, flatten it, then use a needle to push each side in towards the center while smooshing the top downwards. It's not an exact science. Essentially just make a cartoon T. 

The pineapple and olive are formed using roughly the same method; make ball, squish, poke hole in the middle. The red onion is simply made by placing balls of white and purple on top of each other in descending size. The teeny jalapeno is the same as the pepperoni, just teeny. The artichoke is complicated; make a tiny, green bullet, score a horizontal line indentation through the middle, scatter some needle pricks above the line and under the line use the edge of your needle to press in vertical indentations.  

I couldn't resist adding the jalapeno, it was too cute! 

Then screw in your hook and you're ready to bake! I baked my little dude at 250 Degrees for 25 minutes and that worked out fine. Mine is about 1.25" long, 1.25" wide and a little over .25" deep. You'll want to bake yours a bit longer if it's thicker than that. Refer to your clay packaging info if you're unsure. 

You can bake your pizza with the screw hook in BUT make sure to unscrew it after baking and coat the screw portion in a thin coat of super glue, then screw back in. It's safer that way. Then pop on a few coats of Sculpey gloss glaze sealant and you're good to go! 

If you're looking to put this little dude on a chain and need help with your clasp skillz I have a quick tute for how to turn a chain into a necklace here. 

Now! Get some clay and start making charms! I highly recommend having a group of friends over and making a BFF pizza where everybody goes home with their own special slice. That's how this pizza tutorial came to be in the first place!!!

Go forth and make pizza! 

Thanks for reading! 

-Ashley