When I first had the idea for this set of dollhouse shops, I knew I wanted the floor of Gastronomia Furlan to be tiled, yet all the floor paper I found online was much fancier than I envisioned for this rustic store. So instead, I bought a sheet of dollhouse wallpaper that could pass for either stone tiles or linoleum, with its abstract design and neutral tones. My plan was to glue the paper onto balsa wood, cut out squares, and use those to tile the floor. But over the years, my confidence in working with polymer clay has grown. Having successfully made a faux granite countertop out of polymer clay for Osteria Al Vecchio Stallo, I decided to try my hand at floor tiles, too.
I took specific inspiration from photos of beige and off-white travertine tiles, particularly the kind with the divots filled in but not polished completely smooth. I started with no less than eleven different mixes of clay: various ratios of Premo ecru, Fimo vanilla, Fimo Soft sahara, Sculpey III beige, and white, all mixed with equal amounts of Premo white translucent. (I probably would have preferred to use regular translucent, but since the COVID-19 pandemic started, there’s been a shortage of Sculpey clay, with translucent being one of the hardest colors to find. I’m currently almost out of regular Premo translucent but had about 1.5 lbs of white translucent, after stocking up a couple of years ago.)
For the veneer, I used a similar method as my faux granite: finely chopping the various colors of clay, pressing the mass together, and rolling it through the pasta machine. But unlike the granite, which stopped at this point, I continued folding and rolling the sheet once or twice more to give the colors a slightly marbled effect. It was just random enough to look realistic. I tried several methods of texturing, but what worked the best for me was a crumpled ball of aluminum foil, pinching the foil into points to create gouges and flattening it at times for more subtle all-over texture. I repeated this process several times, using different mixes of the eleven colors, so that each batch would vary slightly from the others. I wanted the faux stone to have a natural, organic, rustic appearance, as opposed to the artificial uniformity of linoleum.
I wanted to avoid the seam that metal cutters typically make, so I asked my husband to make a 1″ square cutter with his 3-D printer. Here are the floor tiles after baking. (I later discovered that the tiles were closer to 7/8″. Since I didn’t have enough at that point, I ended up making a couple dozen more.)
Next, I used light brown acrylic paint to “antique” the tiles, a technique that involves applying paint liberally so it gets into all the crevices and then wiping the paint off the surface.
Here are the tiles glued onto the base of the shop.
I sealed the tiles with Helmar Crystal Kote Matte spray varnish and filled the cracks with plaster of Paris mixed with water.
