DIY: Stele from The Mortal Instruments

So I just finished reading the first five books of The Mortal Instruments series (WHY did I not know book 6 wasn't out yet?) (WHY is book 6 not out yet??) I will be reviewing them on here presently, but first I was asked to make a DIY of the Stele that I made for Halloween birthday party reasons. So here it is: for your own Halloween reasons, perhaps.

WHAT YOU NEED:

Pencil (or something else that will be used for support)

Polymer clay

crystal 

STEP 1: 

Wrap the pencil in Polymer clay. I used an old pencil because it was shorter. You want to keep your pencil about the size of your palm so that when everything is together it's not too long. Because it was old and short, it was also sharpened. I broke off the tip and tried to get it as flat as possible. The pencil tip was having none of that. I eventually wrapped extra around the tip and rolled it out on the table, removing extra clay as I went, to make it all even and straight. 

STEP 2: 

Wrap clay around the end of the crystal using the same method as the pencil tip. My crystal was narrower at the bottom so I had to fill that in and roll it too. Make sure the clay on the end of your crystal is the same width as your pencil/handle. 

STEP 3: 

Bake them in the oven. I pre-heated my oven to 250 degrees and left the handle and crystal in for

15 minutes because they were only about a centimeter or 2 thick. 

STEP 4: 

This is the hard part. You use some industrial glue to glue the crystal and the handle together. And then you WAIT. For 24 hours. It's really, really hard to wait that long. Trust me. But if you don't wait 24 hours (even if it looks dry) the handle will break off. I learned that the hard way. WAIT. 

STEP 5: 

Now that you've got your Stele together (and it's dry) it's time for decorations. Each Stele is as unique as the person that owns it. They also reflect the personality of the owner. For example, Jace's Stele was clear, silver, triangular, and fairly simple. Isabelle's was red and had an antiqued silver snake wrapped around it. I can't remember what Clary's Stele looked like but for some reason I'm thinking it had some purple in it.

Mine is Opalite and silver with swirls and little jewels. 

Have fun and be creative with this process!

STEP 6: 

Now that you've got your decorations on the Stele (hopefully covering up the crevice, otherwise just take more clay and roll it out VERY thinly and cover the crevice, smoothing it down before applying your design) it's time to bake it for the last time. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees again and leave your Stele in for

20 minutes. My decorations were about a quarter inch thick so they needed 20 minutes vs the 15 from the first time. 

It is perfectly safe to heat the clay again once it's already been heated. Just make sure your oven doesn't get to 300. As long as it's between 210 and 270 then you are fine. At 300 degrees the heat reacts badly with the clay, resulting in toxic fumes. So that's kind of an important thing to know. 

WARNING: 

As you can see here, my clay cracked during heating. Here is a good article to read to avoid cracking. If it DOES crack, well, there's not much you can do to fix it. What I did was take tiny pieces of clay, rolled them until they were so thin I could barely see them, smash it into the cracks (smoothed it out) and then heated it for one minute. ONE MINUTE and no more. It seems to have worked. 

VOILA

The finished product.

Enjoy!


UPDATE 10.29.13:
Oh, look. Another Stele.
Just call me an Iron Sister.