As the shops constantly remind us, Christmas is just round the corner! Jingaling! Okay so I DO love getting that Christmassy feeling… but I don’t like getting it in October, so that by December I’m a bit bored of it. But maybe that’s just me!
On the plus side, the good thing is that festive reminders give us crafty and organised folk (I’m not the latter, although I try to be every year!) a chance to get creative on our Christmas presents. This year, I thought I might dig out the air dry clay and make some little pottery gifts. I thought a candle holder would be nice so I decided to make one shaped like a little house – I saw one in Butlers a few weeks back and it looked like it could be quite simple to emulate. It only few hours to make, with some overnight drying time. Here’s the finish (prototype!) house:
To make, firstly I drew the house on paper, with all sides measures to create a template. I cut that out and placed it on some rolled out clay and then cut around. For the windows I cut the bare holes first and then added rolled out thin strips of clay on the insides of the walls once the had dried. The good thing about air dry clay is that you can sand it down with an emery board when it is set, so rough edges (e.g in the windows) are easy to remove.
I then used super glue to stick my house together. Clay would give a better finish but it would be very tricky to get all the sides to hold together. I then coated the glued areas with some watered down clay (aka slip) and sanded down again once dry.
The final stage was to coat the lot with a strong clay varnish. This makes the house shine as well as giving strength.
Once I had my house and was happy about it, I thought it would be really nice to make a version modelled on my mother in law’s house. We’ll see how that one comes out!
Tia
Little Button Diaries 