Fake Raspberries and Blueberries

In  the show I am currently working on, one of the characters mixes up some sangria, with a variety of fruit, onstage as part of the action. I knew all of the fruit couldn't be real, it would cost us a fortune in consumables every night. 

To make blueberries I started with some marbles I bought in the home decoration section at Michael's. I chose the marbles partially because they would help the blueberries sink in the liquid like real berries, and partially because they are so ridiculously cheap.

I coated each marble with a thin layer of Sculpey oven-bake clay.

Once the marble was totally enclosed I took the tip of one of my keys and roughed up one spot on the ball. Next I baked them, with the clay so thin they only needed to be baked for about ten minutes.

I added random touches of thinned red and blue paint to the berries to give them more varied natural color and they were done.

And now the raspberries. 

Again I started with little marbles I bought at Michael's. 

I covered them bit by bit with dots of hot glue, giving each "row" time to dry before adding more so that the dots of hot glue kept their shape without melting together.

And then I painted them all red.

From a distance and packed into Tupperware they look pretty convincing. Hopefully they will be equally convincing when they are dropped into a pitcher of fake red wine.