Creating the Umbilical

1. The first step is to clean your hands! Then, use a piece of old clay, rolled around in a ball, to clean the lint off of your hands. Roll the ball of old clay around the palms of your hands.

2. Now, after cleaning the lint off of your hands with old clay, roll out a piece of new clay about 1/3 inch around and an inch or so long.

3. Cut a disk off of the end of your roll of clay. The disk should be about 1/8 inch thick and about 1/3 inch in diameter.

4. Bake the disk. It should be about 1/8 inch thick and 1/3 of an inch around. Bake it at about 270 degrees for about 10 minutes. This disk will be used later to keep the umbilical cord clamp from cutting the clay in half. The little disk in the top right corner of this photo is the baked disk.

5. Now roll out a piece of clay about 1/2 inch around and an inch or so long.

6. Place the baked disk in the middle of the clay.

7. Put a magnet (our item #1682) in one end and smooth everything out. After you smooth it out, the clay should be formed like a small, thin cylinder, with a magnet on one end, and the baked disk in the center.

8. Next, twist the cord a little.

9. Put the clamp on over the now covered baked disk.

10. Using a 3-in-1 Sculpting Tool, or else a clay shaping brush, or else the handle-end of your paintbrush, smooth the "teeth" marks of the clamp off of the clay:

11. Shape the "cut" end of the cord.

12. Now press the magnet end of the cord onto the belly plate that you will be using it on to shape the end to fit, making sure that there is only a very thin layer of clay on the end of the magnet. This is the step that determines if your umbilical is going to be an "innie" or an "outie", because it depends on which belly plate you press the magnet end of the cord against to shape it.

13. Bake the cord with the clamp on at 235 degrees for about 45 minutes. After it is baked, if the clamp gets a little brown, you can cut it off and put a new clamp on. Add a little red paint mixed with brown to the tip and a light touch of blue to the base and seal it with the varnish. Glue a second magnet to the inside of the belly plate using E6000 glue (our item #1457) making sure that the magnet is placed on in the right direction so the cord attaches rather than repels away from the belly plate.

All Pictures and Text Copyright 2004, by Bountiful Baby
All Rights Reserved