Air dry clay ornaments

Hey there, it's Jane from the blog chalkingupsuccess.com and today I'm making some lovely ornaments with air dry clay. So first I'm cutting off a chunk of the air dry clay. Don't be put off buying this because you think that it looks grey and not white. It looks grey now but as it dries then it will turn white. So I'm going to start kneading the clay now and you can see that I've got a glass bowl with a sponge, a wet sponge, next to me and I'm going to use the sponge to wet my fingers while I'm working with the clay and the moisture will stop the clay from sticking to my hands. I'm using some thickness guides to make sure that all of my ornaments turn out the same thickness. I made these guides by gluing together some strips of an old wooden blind that I had but you could achieve the same effect by gluing some long wooden rulers together. And then place the guides on either side of the air dry clay and then roll out the clay making sure that the rolling pin or the bottle in this case stays on top of the guides. I'm going to make my first pattern with some evergreen branches that I got from the garden and I just place them on. There's no science to this really it's just whatever I think looks good and then I just roll the bottle over the green leaves and gently pick them up. It doesn't look like anything much right now but it looks gorgeous when it's finished so bear with me here. And now I'm using a cookie cutter to cut out an ornament and the cookie cutter is in the shape of the ornament and I just press it down gently. It's a bit hard to get up but sometimes it's easier to remove the clay around the cookie cutter first and by the way I'm using a tile to roll out my clay on and but I would recommend if you're using any other surface to put down some wax paper or baking paper and it would really help you to lift up the ornaments the clay ornaments afterwards. So now I'm going to use some lace ribbon to make my next ornament. Just place it down make sure there's enough space. Roll it in with my rolling pin. By the way I'm using a bottle because I don't want to use my normal baking rolling pins because air dry clay is not food safe so anything I use with this air dry clay I won't be using for food afterwards hence the bottle and it does a really good job. Sometimes I think the hardest part of this is figuring out where to put the ornament cutter and I noticed there's a few imperfections on this ornament so I'm going to just wet my finger and rub it across the the ornament and smooth it down and that will get rid of all the imperfections and now I'm going to put a little stamp on this one. I bought this cookie stamper and I'm just going to use this for crafting. Just a tip if you want to use one of these cookie stampers then remember to add the letters back to front so that when you turn it over and press it onto your ornament then the words would be the right way around and the edges are sometimes a bit rough and some people will tell you that they use a nail file or some sandpaper afterwards once the ornament is dried to go around the edges and take away the roughness but I find that it's much much easier to put your finger into the sponge and run your finger around the edge of the ornaments and that takes away all the roughness and you don't need to do any sanding afterwards. The edges are really smooth and now I'm going to make the holes for the hangers and I've got a metal straw and I'm just pushing it in and twisting it around a little bit and you'll notice that the clay is stuck up inside the straw but if you put a little bit of water into the container with the sponge and then drop your straw into that afterwards then the next time you use it the clay won't stick up inside the straw but it will stay on the ornament itself. So for this one I'm using a wooden Christmas ornament and I don't need to use the rolling pin here. I'm just pressing it down with my hands and then when I lift it up there's the pattern and just cut that out. It's not all going to fit in with this ornament cookie cutter but I'll just press it down where I think it looks good and make the hole and you can see that the little bit of clay did not stick up inside the straw this time because I added water to the container with the sponge. It's so pretty isn't it and I'm just going to wipe off my hands. When I'm using air dry clay I have an old damp towel next to me ready to wipe my hands because it sticks on my hands and I just wanted to show you that you could also use these embossed rolling pins to make these ornaments but if you use these for air dry clay then you can't use them for baking and I love to use these for Christmas baking. There's a recipe on my blog showing you how to use these rolling pins and I'll link that down below if you'd like to to see it. These are just wooden ornaments that you can throw onto the table for tablescapes and things and I'm just putting a couple of them into the clay and pressing them down with my hands to make the next ornament. Sometimes it's a little bit hard to get them up and but if you don't have nails then maybe use a needle or something to just leave the the wooden decorations up out of the air dry clay and by the way this project is on my blog and if you want to make these ornaments then I really do recommend that you go and take a look at that post because it's got loads more information like how to dry the ornaments to avoid cracking and what to do if they do crack and so much more so I'll leave a link to the blog post in the description below this video as well. Press it down and by the way if you don't have any metal straws then the top of a eyeliner pen will probably do the trick as well and I'm going to stamp the word joy onto this one as well. I'm so therapeutic making these and the great thing about air dry clay is that if you make a mistake it doesn't matter you can just roll it back up it's just like rolling pastry. Roll it back up and knead it and then roll it out again and start from new and I'm speeding it up a little bit for you. A piece the word peace going down another one with snowflakes and this is one of my planters that I've used to make this little pattern and now I'm finished I'm just going to wrap up the clay really tightly until I need it next time so I'm just pushing the plastic down inside on the one side and then I'll fold it over at the top and I'll just put an elastic band over it and it will keep like that until I want to use it next time and here's how they look. I think they turned out so pretty you could also use these as gift tags or on the table as a place name for your table settings. To finish them off I just added some jute twine or a little bit of brown string and I just threaded it through the hole and before I tied it off I threaded on three white wooden beads and then I tied a knot and they look absolutely stunning I love them so much. If you like the tutorial please give it a thumbs up it really helps me and I'll see you next time.