*BEST* Air-Dry Clay TIPS and TRICKS for BEGINNERS

Did you know that air dry clay can be used to create stunning pieces without the need for a kiln? Welcome to my quick guide on mastering air dry clay for beginners. In this video I'll cover everything you need to know to get started. Hello my crafty friends I'm Donna from Mason Creations etc and welcome to my channel. Are you ready for some air dry clay tips and tricks? Okay then let's make a mess. For this demonstration I'm going to be using DOS clay. This clay is my all-time favorite. I've tried several different types of air dry clay and I feel that this one performs the best. You'll see very little shrinking and cracking. If you do get some cracks I'm going to show you how to fix them easily so make sure you stick around. When you take your clay out of the package you'll need to knead it just a tiny bit so it warms up and is easier to work with. I'm putting it in the molds and using a palette knife I'm slicing off the excess clay by skimming it lightly over the top. Start from the center and work your way outward. If you start on the edge and work inward it will pull the clay out of the mold. As I'm doing this I'm always pressing the clay as deep as I can into the mold. I want to make sure that all the detail is captured. If there are any spots that are thin because too much clay was removed just put a tiny piece of clay in there and skim off the extra again. I'm spraying some water on my finger and rubbing it over the clay to smooth it out and clean the clay off the edges of the form. After you remove your clay from the package make sure you pull it together and roll it up. Clay dries out very quickly. This and all the products you're going to see me use today came from DecoupageNapkins.com, my wonderful sponsors. I had several requests to make a video that explained all the ins and outs of working with clay. My crafty friends Sharon G. from Connecticut, Julie M., Eileen F., Barbette, Rhonda S., Diane W., Debra T., and several others that I wasn't able to see the names. I do see a lot of questions regarding clay so I'm here today to hopefully answer all of your questions. If I missed anything that you want to know please make sure to send me a comment. These are ready for the freezer now. Yep, we're going to make claysicles. The freezer makes the clay stiff and the forms will just pop out of the mold without breaking. I'm going to leave them in the freezer for about 20 minutes. You can leave them in there longer but not overnight. I tried that one time and it was a complete fail. The clay dried out and was completely unusable. Look how easily this ballerina just pops out of the mold. Even her delicate arms, legs, and that tiny little hand. Nothing broke. Even the beak on the hummingbird remains intact. You get so much more detail because the clay is hard and it doesn't get disrupted, removing it from the mold. I'm cleaning up around the edges before I glue these onto my project base. I didn't press this flour into the mold good enough so there's a little spot where there must have been an air bubble. So I'm going to fix that with some pre-mixed tile grout. You'll also need some water, a paper towel, and a tiny brush. I scooped up a little bit of the grout and I'm putting it in the little hole. Now I'm wetting the brush and then dabbing it on the paper towel. You need a damp brush but not really wet. I'm smoothing out the grout with the damp brush. If you have any cracks in your clay, this is the same process that you'd use to repair them as well. Before I put the lid on my grout, I give it a couple squirts of water to keep it fresh. There's a deep edge on these flowers that will show so I'm scraping it off. This cute little plate has been in my stash for so long I have no idea where I got it, but it'll work for this demo. I'm going to glue the flowers and hummingbird on here using a good PVA glue like tacky glue or gem tack. I'm gluing them while the clay is still wet. The plate has a lip and I'm going to be bending the flowers and forming them into the dip. Once the clay dries, you can't do this. DecoupageNapkins.com has such a great selection of napkins that you can purchase one at a time. They carry many other craft supplies such as rice paper, paint, clay, molds, and a great selection of polyvine products. Over 8,000 products and growing. They are wonderful to work with and will send your order out fast. They offer several automatic discounts when checking out. Subscribe to their newsletter by entering your email address and you'll receive 10% off your next order. They are truly your one-stop shop for craft supplies. Make sure you check them out. I'll be leaving links for all the products I use in my description box below. I'm using a q-tip and paper towel to remove any excess glue that oozed out from under my pieces. Where are you watching from? Let me know in the comments. It's fun to see what cities and countries you are all watching from. I'm filming from Las Vegas, Nevada in the United States. I got a little bit out of sequence. Sorry my friends, but you'll get to see how I made that really flexible butterfly in just a few minutes. There are some molds that are going to be impossible to use clay because they are way too shallow. Don't even try. You'll just get frustrated. Cream paste is here to save the day. Put it in the mold with a palette knife and lightly skim off the excess. Let it dry overnight. It dries really flexible, which you already saw how I was able to bend that butterfly between the flowers. Okay, let's roll out some clay and do some cookie cutter ornaments. I'm going to show you two different ways to make your edges. I rolled the clay out about a quarter of an inch thick and cut my tree the normal way. This gives you a sharp squared edge. Now I'm going to cover the clay with a piece of clear plastic wrap. Wait till you see what happens to that edge now. Instead of a sharp cut square edge, you get a rounded edge. Pretty cool, isn't it? I rolled out some more clay and now I'm going to put a stencil over top of the clay and roll it. The image from the stencil transfers to the clay. I'm using a round cookie cutter with the plastic wrap to cut my ornament. I'll let these all dry overnight. Here's how you need to close up your clay when you're done for the day. Put whatever little pieces you have left in with your remaining clay and push them together as tight as you can. You don't want any air pockets. Now give it a few squirts of water and fold it up in its original package tightly, removing all the air. I fold it over as tight as I can and tape it shut. Then I put it in a ziplock bag, again pressing out as much air as I can. This will keep your clay fresh for a long time. And don't forget to put holes in your ornament like I just did. Luckily they're not dry yet. I just used a stir stick to make the holes. There is a dent in this tree that I'm going to fix with the pre-mixed grout. I added the grout to the dent. I'll let that dry and then I'll be able to sand it nice and flat. I'm removing that butterfly from the mold that I made with the cream paste. But before you remove it, you need to wipe off all the medium that's around the molded form. I'm using an alcohol wipe and rubbing all of it off so only the butterfly is left. Look how easy that unmolds. This works great for shallow mold, however it does not work well at all for a deep mold. It will take several days to dry, sometimes even more. If there are any pieces that you missed you can just cut them off with a pair of scissors. After the clay ornaments dried, I gave all the edges a sanding to make them smooth. You can use sandpaper or a nail file, whichever you prefer. I also sand the back of the ornament to get rid of any lip that there may be. I'll be decorating these two little trees at the end of the video just so you can see what you can do with them. They actually turn out really cute. Make sure you stick around. If you're enjoying this video, please let me know by hitting that like button and why not share this with a friend. Thanks for doing that. One of the reasons that I glue my clay embellishments on while the clay is still wet is that when something intricate is drying, it can warp a little bit. I let the ballerina just dry on its own and see how she's wobbling. Also, I made two little ornaments using the same cookie cutter. They have both dried. The one on the right is Das Clay and the other one is another brand of air dry clay. Quite a difference, isn't it? Das air dry clay has very little shrinking when it dries. I'm rolling out some clay and now I'm going to use a texture sheet. You just put this over your clay and roll it. The texture on the sheet transfers to the clay and of course I'm going to make an ornament out of this. I covered it with some plastic wrap to get that round edge and cut it with a round cookie cutter. Now I let it dry overnight. Then I'll flip it over and let the other side dry for a couple of hours. Most of the time you're going to need to let your clay dry overnight. Here are a couple of poinsettias fresh out of the freezer. I'm gluing them to the wood look ornament. I'm not going to finish this one today. It'll be one of my weekly projects that you can look forward to seeing in the next few weeks. I test all the products that I recommend in my videos. I won't recommend anything that I haven't used myself and prefer. If I'm recommending it you can bet it's a great product. Each product will be listed in my description box below and will have a blue link to make it easy for you to find. Any of the links I provide are safe for you to click on. Here's something fun you can do with clay. Rubber stamps. These are by Stamperia and have so much detail. I rolled out my clay, put my stamp on an acrylic holder and pressed the stamp into the clay. All the detail in the stamp transfers to the clay. Then I used a round cookie cutter to make my ornament. I let it dry and now I'm going to paint the whole thing with Dixie Belle paint and the color drop cloth and let that dry. All of the techniques I'm showing you today can be used for any type of project. I'm going to be doing some antiquing on this one and I need a shiny surface so I'm giving it a coat of polyvine heavy duty wood varnish and let that dry for an hour. I'm brushing on Pentart antique paste in the color umber to make all the details from the stamp stand out. I hope you're enjoying all the quick little samples. I thought it would be fun to show you the end results on some of these techniques. I get asked often if you can put air dry clay on a bottle or jar. Yes you can! Here's an example of that. I used this nutcracker mold along with some cute little Christmas ornaments. I just got them out of the freezer and I'm going to glue them on the jar while the clay is still wet. The jar is rounded in the middle, top and bottom. In order for the clay to conform to the shape of the jar it needs to still be wet. I pre-painted this jar a light tan and then used an ombre technique with darker tan paint at the top and bottom. If you want to see a video on how to paint ombre you can click the banner at the top of the screen. I'll also leave you a link for that video in my description box below in the more section. If I get a little messy with the glue I just clean it up with a wet paintbrush. I'm not going to be painting or finishing up this jar today. I'm going to save it for a weekly project video. You can look forward to seeing this finished up within the next couple of weeks. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss it. This will need to dry overnight. You can decoupage on these homemade clay discs and you guys know how much I love to decoupage. I'm separating my picture and decoupaging it to my white painted base. I'm using polyvine heavy duty wood varnish as my decoupage adhesive. I'm adding the picture and brushing it down with the varnish. I let that dry and now I'm sanding off the excess paper. I'm adding some decor gilding wax in the color eternal which is a gorgeous gold. This product is new to my arsenal of really fun products. I'm actually having a lot of fun with it. I'll be going over it more with you in upcoming videos so make sure you stay tuned. If you've never tried rub-on transfers they're pretty fun and another thing you can do on these clay discs. First I primed the clay disc with polyvine multi-surface lacquer and let it dry overnight. It's a great primer. I separated the images I wanted from the sheet, peeled off the backing and then rubbed the image with the stick that's included. Then remove the protective plastic slowly to make sure everything transferred. Next another coat of multi-surface lacquer and let dry. For a touch of elegance I added some metallic wax rub to the edge in the color aged brass and a snowflake. Here are some finishing touches. On the one with the stencil I painted white background and then the picture using pentart paint in silver red and pine green. This would be a really fun project for kids. I mixed polyvine glitter paint maker with the heavy duty wood varnish for my final sealer and it shimmers so pretty. Then I used pentart snow crystal paste to make the back look like snow. Do you have any other ideas on what can be done with air dry clay? Let me know in the comments. I'd love to hear your ideas. Here are the finishing touches on the cookie cutter christmas trees. I used pentart paint and painted one of them pink and the other one pine green and this is another one that would be so much fun for kids. I used dixie bell paint and a sponge to add some white paint around all the edges of both trees. I'm adding some colored half pearls to the pink tree and some red and green gems to the green tree. I mixed polyvine heavy duty wood varnish and a tiny bit of polyvine glitter paint maker for my final varnish on both trees and they are shimmering beautifully. I hope you found this video fun and informative. The things you can do with air dry clay are just endless. It's one of my favorite mediums. I don't do any clay sculpting or fired ceramics but I sure do admire the artists that do. Some of them are truly mind-boggling. The nutcracker is going to be a soap dispenser. The little plate will be a spring video right after the first of the year and the poinsettias on wood will be a tree ornament and the ballerina haven't actually decided yet what to do with her. If you have any ideas what to do with the ballerina let me know in the comments. The nutcracker and the poinsettias on wood will be weekly projects that you'll get to see me finish up very soon. Don't forget all of the wonderful products I'm using today can be found at my favorite place for craft supplies decoupagenapkins.com and I'll leave you links in my description box below. If you would like to see more in-depth tutorials just like this one click the picture on the bottom right to be taken directly to a playlist. Thank you so much for watching and I hope this tutorial was helpful. Don't forget to subscribe by clicking my picture in the top right corner so you don't miss any future videos.