Do you want to surprise your loved ones with unusual DIY New Year gifts? Modern materials for creativity allow you to create beautiful crafts and accessories, without special skills and without much effort. Creating clay ornaments on a Christmas tree is one example of such needlework. If you have children in your home, invite them to have fun making toys. Hand-made things fill the house with warmth and comfort, and the process of creating them turns into pleasant memories.
Types of materials for creating jewelry
To create jewelry, you can use salt dough, polymer clay or cold porcelain. Each of these molding materials has its own characteristics. But we will consider only one of them - polymer clay. It is also called plastic and is used to create jewelry, figurines and figures, dolls and various souvenirs. For Christmas decorations made of clay, you can use self-hardening material, which is dried in the fresh air. It is convenient to use because it is softer, and the finished product does not need to be burned in the oven or baked in the oven.
Necessary tools for working with plastic
Self-hardening polymer clay easily wrinkles and stretches during operation, it retains its shape well after drying. The palette of popular manufacturers has a lot of shades, so choosing the right gamut is very easy. It’s nice to work with the material, suitable for teaching beginners and classes with children, as it resembles plasticine in properties.
To create jewelry from clay, you will also need a solid surface, for example, ceramic tiles without convex parts or strong glass. As additional tools you may need cookie cutters, small rolling pins and a knife. The smoothed edges of jewelry can be obtained by covering the material with cling film.
How to make an interesting texture
It is easiest to create a relief surface on Christmas toys with the help of textured stamps and natural materials, for example, fir branches and spices. Some craftsmen use knitted scarves, ribbons and other objects with a three-dimensional structure for this purpose. To create Christmas decorations from clay, you will also need rhinestones, pigments and brushes for applying them. Finishing the edges of products is easiest with sandpaper. It can also be used to create textures.
You can apply a drawing not on the entire surface of the toy, but only on one edge, leaving the space empty. A beautiful relief is obtained if you press a tape or braid to the clay. Such jewelry will look unusual and stylish. Using your own monogram or painting will make them unique. Perhaps such a toy will be passed down from generation to generation and will become a family heirloom. The monogram is placed on the back of the product using a special stencil or stamp.
Clay modeling: a beginner's workshop
Beginners are advised to work with polymer clay in gloves so as not to leave fingerprints. But even if flaws appear on the surface of the product, they can be hidden later using a special varnish. To create clay jewelry with your own hands, prepare everything you need, and then knead the material well.
Then follow some simple steps:
- Roll the plastic into a sheet 0.5 cm thick and cover one side with pigment of the selected color using a brush.
- Create a textured surface using sandpaper or other embossed material. To do this, place the plastic on it and roll it with a rolling pin.
- Place the film on the pigmented side to make rounded edges. Then press the cookie molds on top. Remove the film and strip the sides of the future toy from bumps. Make a hole for the rope so that the decoration can be hung on the Christmas tree.
- Apply an additional pattern using rhinestones, buttons or beads.
- Coat the toys with another layer of pigment.
- Leave to dry in a dark place for a day.
It is important to keep in mind that after drying, the polymer mass decreases slightly, it shrinks. In order to hang toys on the Christmas tree, loops or pins are sometimes screwed into the blanks, which are then bent. For decor, instead of pigment, needlewomen use clay of a different color. For example, if you want to make toys look like gingerbread, you can use a brown shade as a base, and add white plastic as a glaze. Improvise and translate your ideas by combining different colors and shapes.
Advantages of self-hardening polymer plastic
Ornaments from clay, hardening in the air, you can create more complex shapes. The advantages of this material include easy processing, the ability to stain, moisture resistance. It is easy to create a figure of any size from self-hardening plastic and convey the character's character. For example, you can make a symbol of the year - a yellow clay clay pig. Such material is more suitable for sculptural sculpting than for creating subtle forms, for example, flower petals. Special floristic clay is best for them. Another plus of this type of clay is the ability to add details after the product dries. It is enough to soak the part that needs to be changed.
Material flaws
The disadvantages of using self-hardening plastic by experienced craftsmen include the possibility of cracking the edges of the products if they are poorly ground. Avoiding this helps them wetting with ordinary water. And yet, you should carefully monitor the amount of moisture and not overdo it, otherwise the product will become too fragile. But even clay jewelry without flaws must be carefully stored and not dropped, otherwise they may break. The disadvantages of this material can also be attributed to the fact that too thin parts can poorly fit together. For such crafts, baked plastic is more suitable. When the toys are dry, they can be additionally varnished or spangled, after which you can thread the braid and hang the finished decorations on the Christmas tree.