DIY Lovebirds Cake Topper

I'm sure many of you have seen the variety of sculpted cake toppers. From personalized brides and grooms to animals... there is a large selection.  One of my bridesmaids saw some sculpted birds for cake toppers and I LOVED them! However, these cute toppers usually come with a hefty price tag... and I just can't justify in my mind spending $40+ on a cake topper.

Enter crazy DIY bride notion to make her own.  :-)

I had no idea what to do, what I'd need, or where to start. So I just winged it. (Most of these pictures were taken with my phone as my camera was on the fritz. Sorry).

SUPPLIES:
- Sculpey clay
- Acrylic paint
- Paint brushes
- Oven
- Toothpicks
- Super glue

PROCESS:

- Ok, so I went to Michael's and bought one of the small blocks of Sculpey clay.  This is not the smallest block, but probably counts as the "medium" size at Michael's. I picked this clay because it's the kind that you bake after you've molded it. I like this idea because then I didn't have to rush or worry about changing my sculpture, since this doesn't harden just from being exposed to air for a bit... and because after baking they get very hard so I didn't have worry about messing them up from that point on.

- Ok, so... buy your sculpey and sculpt your birds. Again... I just kind of winged this part. I looked at some other pictures of clay birds for reference though. I chose to sculpt all the parts of my bird separately. The body, the wings, and the beak. I didn't really want my birds to be too realistic looking.... so adding the parts on later seemed to give me the look I was going for.  If you plan on giving your birds legs then you need to make the holes for the legs now as you won't be able to after it's baked and hardened.  Toothpicks ended up being just the appropriate size for my bird legs. (Don't leave the toothpicks in while baking, just make the holes and then remove them.)

- After you've sculpted your birds, you then bake the clay in the oven according to the directions on the side of the Sculpey package. I believe it's like 15 mintes for every 1/4 inch of thickness or something. Read the package, it'll tell you.

- Take the birds (and their various parts) out of the oven and allow them to cool completely.

-After they've cooled you can paint them any color you prefer. Also, paint their various parts and accessories. I painted by birds a pale pink and their beaks a mocha brown color.

-Add accessories. I chose to give my groom a dark brown bow tie that I sculpted from the clay too. The bride has a veil that I created by just cutting a small rectangle shape from a piece of tulle and then sewing with white thread at one end to gather it.

- Super glue the wings, beaks, and accessories onto the birds.

-Paint some eyes on. I gave mine dark brown eyes.... the bride got some cute eyelashes.

And there ya have it. They aren't perfect, but they are handmade and I adore them. And this project probably cost me about $10 total. Awesome!