Hello everyone!

I was inspired by nostalgic memories from my childhood of how we used to look at the winter street from the room — through the frozen windows. And the windows froze very nicely, all in unique patterns!

I immediately wanted to transfer the image of a winter window to some of my own things, and then a pocket mirror turned up. Of course, my "frost patterns" are far from their perfect natural prototypes, but it still is extremely pleasant to make them, and the mirror turned out to be really "wintery". I think that everyone who tries to do something like this will come out in his or her own interesting and beautiful way.

For the mirror I needed:

- a pocket mirror itself, which I bought in the store of goods for creativity,

- polymer clay FIMO Effect 302 (brilliant blue), FIMO Effect 11 (gold) and quite a bit of FIMO Effect 08 (mother of pearl),

- FIMO gel,

- a blade,

- a needle,

- a plunger,

- a ruler and a marker.

Roll out the blue layer. I used FIMO 302 because it has very beautiful sequins that are perfect for the background of our window — the window of a winter frosty evening. Cut out a square (or other shape — depending on the mirror), place it on the surface of the mirror, align it if there are irregularities, and bake (FIMO is baked for half an hour at 110 degrees, if you use clay from another company — follow the instructions from the packaging).

During baking, prepare the material for the "icicles": add FIMO gel to a piece of mother-of-pearl clay. You can take white or blue color instead of the pearl one — in each case, there will be different results. We add gel for softening, because to make "frosty patterns", we need to strongly soften FIMO, so that it becomes sticky and viscous.

After preparing a soft piece of mother-of-pearl clay, rest and wait for the square to bake and cool. Then use a marker and a ruler to mark the borders of the window frames. Maybe I went a little too far with the width, you can make them thinner.

Now take a small piece of mother-of-pearl clay and roll it with a stick, "smear" on the base. Now take the needle and start the meditative stage of work, try to hold the needle from the center of the strip to the sides, achieving "shaggy" effect. You can stop at the first tap, leaving quite large "branches", or you can fluff more. The resulting pattern strongly depends on the smoothness or, conversely, sharpness of the needle movement, so it is really worth experimenting and noting the most suitable option for yourself. I pull the branches up, but you can do it in the other direction – by sharpening the tops.

Here we do not forget to take into account the borders of window frames — you can go beyond them, but the main thing is to take them into account when building a composition. I have quite large patterns, perhaps smaller ones will look interesting.

Having finished with one branch, proceed to the other. You can also make circles and other shapes, spirals, for example. As the space is filled, it becomes more difficult, because now you need to make sure that you do not accidentally touch the ready-made patterns.

Having received a drawing that suits us, we cut off all the excess exactly at the edges of the window frames and send it back to the oven. While baking, we prepare the frames. I was interested in making them non-uniform, although you can, of course, just take any color and cut out strips from it. I took a piece of gold FIMO and rolled it into a "sausage", then twisted it to get strips. Cut into two parts, rolled them, getting a layer with beautiful stains.

The second time the mirror is baked, we take it out of the oven, wait until it cools down, and cut off strips of gold along the width of the frames. We coat the place where the frames are attached with gel for the strength of the connection and apply strips. Smooth one to the other, so that you can not see the seams.

Now the final moment: apply the gel to the "window" itself. Need quite a bit, to tier was very the thin, evenly smearing his small brush (brush better take such a, what not pity — launder its will be very difficult, and better to leave for work precisely with gel). Carefully make sure that there are no air bubbles left — especially among the twigs. Now we bake for the last time.

After cooling, remove our "window" from the mirror, degrease its back side and the mirror pad, and glue it with super glue.

We give a winter mirror to ourselves or someone close to us :-)

© Anya Kokareva (Annie Bimur)