Homentashen - made with air dry clay

Lately, besides working on a few custom orders, I also found some time to make these homentashens using air dry clay. My friend especially requested for some of these, and after looking through some photos, I got excited and started making some.

The real homentashen calls for fruit preserves to be filled into the center of the dough before folding. But of course, this is not easy when working with air dry clay. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I like my work to be clean and neat. So taking that into consideration, and allowing myself to have the option to refold if I need to, I prefer to leave mine empty. Will fill in the centers when they are thoroughly dried. This should be much simpler :)

Of course, while I left the homentashens to dry, I also experimented with making fake fruit preserves fillings. I'm really itching to get the texture right, and I always do my tests on rough recycled paper first. Nothing gets wasted, and you can keep working till you get the right texture.

Fake fruit preserves is a new challenge for me. The texture isn't smooth, and there are bits of fruits in them. But to assimilate that look in miniature making calls for some "out of the box" ideas.

On the left is blueberry or raspberry preserves, and on the right is apricot preserves.

I'm really happy with how the preserves turned out, and I get to learn something new as well.

Now that I'm happy with the texture, it's time to work on the different types of fruit preserves. 

I'm going to fill up the homentashens and let you take a look at the final product later. :)

Have a good weekend everyone!