Hello nerds! Welcome to the second episode of The Crafty Geek here on The Nerdy Girl Express! This week the much anticipated movie Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice will be released. So in spirit of this, I decided to make some kryptonite!

I’m very excited about this movie and I fully admit that I hope Batman will kick some Superman butt! Sorry Superman, my heart belongs to the Bat. So since I’m rooting for Batman to win, I thought I’d make something that might give him an edge over Superman.

If you’d like to try this project out, here are the things you will need:

• Light Green and Glow-in-the-dark polymer clay (you can get these at your local craft store. I use Sculpey)
• A craft knife or other blade
• chalk pastels or eyeshadow
• glossy glaze

First I took some of my light green clay and mixed it with my glow-in-the-dark clay. Make sure that the clay is mixed so there are no streaks of separate colors showing. Once you’ve done this roll the clay out into a thick snake.

Next, cut the snake into different size pieces. We are making a crystal after all, so we want irregular shapes and sizes to make it look a little more realistic.

Once you’ve done that, its time to bake! Bake your pieces in an oven according to your clay package instructions. Since I use Sculpey, they say to bake at 275° F. Bake the pieces for about 10 minutes. When they come out of the oven, let them cool for a few minutes until you can safely handle them. We don’t want you burning your little fingers! Once they’ve cooled, take each piece and use a craft knife to cut the pieces into hexagonal shapes. Be careful not to cut yourself! If you’re a kid, I’d probably have adult supervision for this part. Heck, I probably should have had adult supervision! I found that cutting was easier when the pieces were still warm and the clay is still a bit soft until it fully cools down. Once you get the sides cut, you’ll want to shape one end of the “crystal” into a point. Make sure not to throw away the pieces you cut off away. I’ll show you why in a minute!

After you’ve cut all your “crystals” take another piece of the same colored clay (unbaked) and make a sort of mound. Place  the crystals in random places to make it look like a clump of formed crystals. Remember how I told you to keep the pieces you cut off? Here is where you are going to use them! Place the cut pieces around the main crystals to make your kryptonite look even more like a naturally formed crystal!

Once you have all your crystal pieces in place, its time to bake again! Oh yeah, I probably should have mentioned that earlier. Don’t turn off your oven after you baked your first pieces! The fantastic thing about polymer clay is that it will bond to itself, wether it’s baked or unbaked! If you want to make sure your crystal pieces are more secure, you can always use some bake and bond or liquid translucent sculpey (this is liquid polymer clay that you can bake and sort of acts like a glue). Now put this piece back into the oven and bake for another 15 minutes. After it comes out of the oven, let it cool completely before moving on to the next step. I sometimes put my projects in the fridge when I’m feeling less inclined to wait.

This is the fun part! Crystals are shiny (usually) and I wanted to put some paint on glossy glaze to make it shine. But I wanted to add a little bit more dimension to the piece. I added some darker green chalk pastel shavings to my glaze until it turned a nice shade of green. I then painted that glaze over the whole crystal and let it dry. I know in the picture below that the gloss looks opaque. It is when its wet, but I promise it dries clear!

Here are the final results of my kryptonite crystal(it even glows in the dark)! I’m super excited with how it came out. So Batman, if you’re reading this and you need some help defeating Superman, I got your back!

Hope you guys enjoyed this weeks episode of The Crafty Geek! If you have any suggestions on what you want to see me make next, shoot it to me in the comment section! You can also send me suggestions on Twitter @luckynerdgirl. Make sure you give @thenerdygirlexp a follow to keep up to date on my geeky crafting and all your other nerdy needs!

Go check out @BatmanvSuperman in theaters this Friday, March 25th! (I’m not affiliated with this movie, I’m just a fan who loves geeky things!)