Tutorial: Heart Sea Turtle polymer clay charms || Collab with Heather Wells

Hey everyone, it's Lily or CoolRaceFunnies, and today I'll be showing you how to make these adorable heart sea turtle charms out of polymer clay. This is a special collaboration with Heather Wells, and you can learn how to make a beautiful albino sea turtle over on her channel. I'll link her tutorial at the end of this video so you can watch it. Heather and I wanted to do this collab to raise awareness about the endangered sea turtles. There are seven species of sea turtles, and nearly all of them are classified as endangered or critically endangered. To learn more about sea turtles and find out how you can help, I'll leave some information in the description box such as links to a turtle hospital that rescues and rehabilitates injured sea turtles, and WWF's turtle adoption page. All of the materials that you'll need for this project will be in the description box down below, and let's get started! Begin with four balls of polymer clay in whatever color you want. Starting with the biggest one, shape it into an upside-down teardrop shape. Pinch the end to make a point and smooth it out with your fingers. After that, take the second largest ball of clay and roll the end between your fingers to make a neck. Then, flatten the top of the circle to make a forehead and pinch the front of the ball to shape its mouth. After that's done, flatten the end of the neck to attach it to the bottom of the shell. Flattening the clay makes it easier to blend it in. You can use a dotting tool and your fingers to smooth it out. To make the front flippers, roll the ball of clay into a log and cut it in half for even pieces. Shape the balls of clay by rolling each end with your finger until you get this weird triangle shape. Then flatten it out and shape it like so. After you have something like this, position the flippers however you like. Then, simply flatten the one end of the flipper and attach it to the bottom of the shell. Take the last ball of clay and cut it in half. With the two pieces, make little teardrop shapes by rolling one end between your fingers. Flatten them out and these are your back flippers. Attach these to the bottom of the shell like before. To make the design on the shell, take a dotting tool or a bobby pin. Make two dots in the center for the bottom and top of the heart. Then, begin tracing out the heart shape one half at a time. Deepen the indents and smooth them out by dragging the dotting tool along the clay. Repeat this technique alongside the bottom of the shell as well as the top to create a grid-like pattern around the heart. Make sure you take your time with this even though it looks like I'm going really fast. These clips are actually just sped up for the video's sake. After you have something that looks like this, create two indents on the head for the eyes and roll out two balls of black clay. Put these in the indents and now your little turtle can see! After you've made all the indents, take some chalk pastels to match your turtle. I used brown and green but you can use whatever colors you want. With a small paintbrush, dust the shell with chalk pastels and use a darker color to focus on the indents. After that, dust the whole shell with your second color. Then, you can use red or pink chalk pastels for the blush. Grab your eye pin or eye screw to make it a charm and bake it in your oven according to your clay's package directions. I baked mine at 275 degrees Fahrenheit for about 30 minutes. After it's done baking, clean off any excess chalk pastel or dust with a cotton swab and acetone or nail polish remover. Be careful and make sure you don't wipe off any chalk pastel that's on the shell. Then, take some acrylic paint, I'm using brown, and begin painting on the little spots and hearts on the turtle's flippers. You don't have to make little hearts if you don't want to, but I think it gives it a nice little detail. I'm using a dotting tool to paint on my designs, but you can also use a toothpick or a tiny paintbrush. You can also paint a heart on the underside of the turtle's head, but again, this is completely optional. Once you have something that looks like this, let the paint dry completely and then glaze your charm to make it shiny. I'll have more information about glazing in the description box down below, so feel free to check that out. And then, once it's all dry, you should have something that looks like this. Thank you so much for watching, and if you enjoyed this tutorial, let me know in the comments down below and tell me what color turtle you liked or want to make. Don't forget to check out the links to learn more about the Endangered Sea Turtles, and check out Heather's tutorial, which is linked on the screen and in the description box down below. I had so much fun collaborating with Heather, and I hope you were able to learn something from her channel. Thank you so much again, and I'll talk to you soon. Bye!