How to paint polymer clay bakery items~?

Hello~! Pink Panda is back again :)
Today we're gonna talk about coloring.
When you have your bakery clay charms ready, the color is kinda flat, right? We can use acrylic paint to help us~ You can also use soft pastels, but I like the acrylic paint better because it's easier to do the blending.

First of all we need to have our tools ready, which are paint and sponge~

This is the acrylic paint I like to use~ It's like the perfect color to do the golden baked effect and I don't have to mix any other color with it.

If you can't find this acrylic paint, you can also mix it your own~ You will need a sunflower type of yellow, bright red and a brown. The ratio is on the picture or you can mix it according to your own judgement to get this curry yellow color~

These are the type of sponges I usually use. They both work fine for me~ The white sponge wedges are makeup sponges, I got it at Sally Beauty Supply. The other one is for painting and I got it at Hobby Lobby~

When you have all your stuff ready, then we can get it started~ You will need to have something to put on top of your table so it will be easier to clean up later. I like to use the baking wax paper because it is right next to me lol~ What I do is I just pour the acrylic paint on top of the wax paper. Then I use the sponge to take a little bit of paint, and I will dap it on the wax paper to get rid of the excess. We only need a tiny bit of color left on the sponge because we want to make a gradient effect on the charm. If we have too much paint on the sponge, then the color contrast will be very strong. It should be like this

Once you have the right amount of paint, then you can put it on your clay charms~

Let's take a cracker for example. Usually I will start with the top surface. I will pull the paint away from the item. (As seen in the picture)

Then I will do the edge next. I just pull the paint downward.

Then I'll go back to the top surface and use the paint that remains on the sponge to pull it inwards. This helps to blend the color better. You can do the same to the bottom surface.

Here's another example~

Before coloring:

 Front:

Back:

It's done~

Now we can take a look of how to paint donut~

We paint the top and the bottom part of the donut, leave the middle part open.

 Start to paint from the hole, the spread the color around (As seen in the picture) so you can get a gradient effect~ Do it the same to the top and the bottom.

Leave the middle part "unpainted"

Here's another one~

Here is a chocolate flavor one~

 I just used the brown acrylic paint to color this one~

Other than polymer clay cracker, cookie or donut, you can also use this technique on polymer clay cupcake, bread, pastry.... etc~ The good thing about acrylic paint is, you can always build up the color. If there's any spot you need to have darker color on, you can put more on top to make it darker~

Hope this is useful to you :) Please come back for more~