Faux snow cone tutorial

Today’s tutorial is going to be a little different. Normally, I stick to the realm of polymer clay. While this does involve clay, it’s not straightforward. A theme from one of my collab groups, @just.claying,around, inspired me to try a new effect. We were to create a piece based around the theme of frozen treats, and one of my favorite summer treats is the snow cone (specifically blue raspberry 🙂 ).

I had read about how white craft sand can be used for a multitude of effects, including miniature ice in some cases. But could I color it and shape it in such a way that it could look like shaved ice?

I didn’t want to paint it because I think that would have covered up the texture of the sand. I needed to give it a way to hold its shape, not only through the baking process, but once it was cooled as well.

With that, I created a little snow cone cupcake for the collab group, and I thought it’d be an easy and fun summer tutorial to share with you all! With that said, you may need some more specialized supplies for this tutorial, but it’s nothing you couldn’t find at a craft store.

Supplies:

• Sculpey CLEAR liquid clay
• Alcohol ink in the color of your choosing. This will be the color of your snow cone.
• White craft sand (I snapped up a giant tub at Michael’s and used a 50% off coupon)
• Toothpick
• Something to pile your snow cone onto. You could also try filling a bakeable mold with the mixture.

A note about the supply list:
1) Please note that clear liquid clay is different than TLS; I’m going to do a test comparison down below to see if it really makes a difference, but I wanted to affect the sand as little as possible beyond the color.
2) If you are good at seamlessly blending colored clay or chalk pastels into liquid clay, you may also choose to use this to color it. Be careful as the clay will change the consistency of the liquid clay, so you risk loosing the sand texture. I’m personally terrible at getting my mixture to be smooth and not lumpy, so adding a liquid colorant was the perfect solution. Resin colorants may work as well if they are oven safe (I have not tried that).

Step 1: Mix up your liquid

The liquid clay was the key to gluing my sand together. This coated the sand and allowed for the strong bond to form during the baking process.

Pour some out onto your work surface. Your final ratio will be more sand than liquid, but it’s easy to add more if you need to mix a bigger batch.

Since I made a miniature, I added 1 drop of alcohol ink to the liquid clay. I know alcohol ink can affect how resin cures, so I’d be hesitant to add too much alcohol ink in case it also affects the liquid clay. A little goes a long way.

Mix this up thoroughly.

Step 2: Add your sand

Again, I mixed up a small batch so I only added pinches of sand at a time. I wanted a thick mixture that was more sand than liquid. This will help keep it from sagging before it’s baked up.

Using the toothpick, mix as much sand as you can fit while still having enough liquid clay to hold everything together. Having a thick sand mixture will also help it keep its shape while baking. Essentially the liquid clay is only there to coat the sand enough for coloring and adhering.

Step 3: Pile it up

You can then use the toothpick to scoop up chunks of sand and pile it up onto your snow cone base.

I first got the sand onto my base and pushed it all together with the toothpick, and then I used my fingers to shape it.

Step 4: Bake

You’ll want to make sure this bakes completely flat, as chances are it’ll slide around as it’s curing in the oven otherwise.

I baked mine according to the liquid clay’s instructions (it happens to bake at the same temperature as my polymer clay).

I finished my snow cone off with a layer of glaze on the icy bits to make it look like it was melting.

Here’s what it looked like once I was finished!

As far as my experiments were concerned, here is what I found:

Using TLS, alcohol ink, and sand:

• Mixture was thicker so the sand texture was lost
• Easy to scoop up this mixture onto my base, but it didn’t hold its shape
• The alcohol ink started seeping into my base and discoloring it. I’d be interested to see if it was due to the color or an affect the TLS/alcohol ink mixture had on the clay
• Since TLS is more opaque, I had to use more alcohol ink to keep the color a little more vibrant, which could have also had an affect on coloring the clay below it and not holding its shape

Using PVA glue, alcohol ink, and sand:

And an overall note: I used different colors of alcohol ink so I could remember which one contained which liquid, but ideally this experiment would all be performed with the same ink just in case the inks reacted differently (I’ve had really weird things happen between my alcohol ink colors from the same brand). The liquid and sand would have been measured as well to see if the liquid played any part in how well the shape was kept through the curing process (this is the science nerd in me speaking 🙂 ). Instead, I mixed until I was happy with the consistency and how it piled up. Results will depend on the ratio of your sand and liquid as well, so experiment and see what works best for you!

Otherwise, I hope this gives you an idea of some options you have to create your own snow cone effect while hopefully being able to utilize materials you have on hand. Ranking these three results, I would have to say the glue surprisingly was my favorite, definitely followed by the clear liquid clay. The TLS ended up being a blobby pool.

What’s your favorite snow cone flavor?