Clay Stamped Christmas Ornaments, Charms, and Gift Tags

 My fingers love making things. When I was a little girl I loved play dough. These days I love to create with fondant. I've recently started exploring with clay and polymer clay. It is seriously fun!

I saw some clay stamped pendants on Then She Made several months ago, and I've been itching to make something "clay stamped"


Anyone can do this! My kids LOVED it and so did I! This is a great project for teens, scouts, adults, whoever. 

 Here are a few of our creations:

Ornaments:

 

Charms:

This is one of my very favorites that my 8 year old designed and created:

And here she is showing it off :)...

Gift Tags:

and a bunch of kiddo creations:

(There were lots of these, and I could only capture a few!! My five year old is addicted!)

These make fun necklaces, bracelets, magnets, key chains, or even good luck charms...


If you want to make your own, here's how:
 materials you'll need:Polymer clay (Sculpey works great), wax paper or freezer paper, rubber stamps or something to imprint, paint such as acrylic, a stylus or toothpick, a paintbrush,  Aluminum foil, Mod Podge, the oven, a baking sheet; jewelry hooks, hemp or ribbon.

My kids are shown in parts of this tutorial because they were all about doing it :).

First, put some wax paper or freezer paper on your work surface. The clay leaves a residue, and it's tons easier to clean up this way!

Get some polymer clay out of the package.

Knead it for a while to get it flexible.

Roll it into a ball.

Press it with your fingers to get as flat as possible. Or put the clay between two pieces of protective paper and roll if you want it perfectly flat.

Choose a stamp or imprint. Stamp it. Press hard enough to get the whole stamp, but not hard enough to get the edges. If you mess up, just roll the clay back up and start over. No biggie.

Then cut it out with a cutter... round, square, whatever for the outer shape. You could do this before the previous step, but doing it in this order helps with the centering and placement.

Using a stylus or toothpick make a hole in the top to hang the ornament or add the chain.

Add words if desired.  Either free hand words with her stylus or stamp them on.


Add any other clay accents if desired (such as the ornaments on the Christmas tree, the buttons on the gingerbread man, or the polka dots on the present, pictured above).  To connect different colors make little hashes in each piece before joining them together. This will help them adhere.

Put  a piece of aluminum foil on a baking sheet, and bake at 275 for 15 minutes per 1/4 and inch. These ornaments will bake for 15-18 minutes.

Let them cool completely.


With paint, brush over the whole surface. Then wipe off quick with a damp cloth or paper towel!!  Brown works best on light colored polymer clay. Use white or a light color on dark polymer clay. Just play around. See what you like.

cover it with paint

wipe it off!

I suggest though, that you do this part after the kids are in bed, or else splattering paint may make some naughty words come out of your mouth. Don't ask how I know this.

Let them dry.

 Paint some accents if you desire. (Such as the star in one of the Christmas trees pictured above).

Brush on some Mod Podge. Let it dry completely.

Put on accessories or bows.

That's it!

 Now get some clay and have fun! 

These are fun for any time of year, just change the stamps and colors.

Thanks for stopping by!

Nancy 

Halloween Cupcakes... and teaching teens or tweens to decorate them

I taught the 8-11 year old girls in my neighborhood and church group how to make my favorite Halloween cupcakes. I wish these cupcakes were totally my idea, but I must gratefully give credit to Make it and Love it (one of my very favorite blogs) for most of it.  These girls had lots of fun, and their cupcakes were adorable.
So, make these yourself or teach some teens or tween or even scouts (although, good luck with that :)) how to decorate them. Here's how I taught the girls...

What you'll need:

butter cream frosting (this recipe)

   divide, leave some white, some purple, some pink with a touch of yellow

   put the purple in a piping bag with a large tip such as Wilton 1M or 2D

   put the pink/yellow in a piping back with Wilton #12 tip, or one with a medium size hole 

White fondant
A bowl or lid (to cut out the ghosts)

chocolate icing (just a little container from the store, or make it)

food writing markers, black, red (or red gel)

chocolate chips

gummy lifesavers

M&M's

Tootsie Pops

Spider Rings

Halloween Sprinkles

First the eyeball....

Spread white frosting on the cupcake. 

Put a chocolate chip in the middle of a gummy lifesaver and put it in the middle of the cupcake.

With a red food writer marker or red gel, draw lines for blood shot eyes.

Next, the brain...

With the pink/ yellow frosting pipe 2 zigzags in the middle, then do zigzags on the sides.

For the mummies...

Roll fondant into small strips and cut into pieces.

Spread chocolate frosting on the cupcake.

Put 2 M&M's on the cupcake as eyes.

Draw little dots on the "eyes" for pupils.

Put small strips of fondant around eyes to resemble a mummy. 

Then make the spider swirls...

With the bag of purple frosting, pipe swirls on the cake. Here is a great explanation for swirling the icing on a cupcake.

Next, pour the sprinkles.

Then stick a spider ring in the middle.  

Last, make the ghosts...

Swirl white frosting on a cupcake.

Then put a tootsie pop in the swirl.

Have someone roll out white fondant and cut with a bowl or lid to make ghosts the size you want.

Cover the tootsie pop with the fondant.

Draw eyes on the fondant ghost with black food writer marker. 

There were lots of smiles all around with this activity...

Thanks for stopping by!!

Nancy

Fall Photography List

In my church  I spend a lot of time with teenage girls (which I love). They wanted to practice some fall photo shoots... which was perfect because I am trying to improve my photography skills too.

There's no better way to improve photography than to get a camera and shoot. (I'm glad that shooting actually has a kind and happy connotation in this field.) It's also nice to kill two birds with one stone

 (... speaking of shooting). So, I made this list, and we went on a photo shoot.

Feel free to print this list and have your own fall photo shoot. Just right click on the image and save it to your computer. Then print as a pdf file. Thanks to Creating Keepsakes and Crafty Scrappy Happy for some of the ideas.



I'm still working on the list...but here are a few of my favorite shots from our activity, and from a recent family hike:

I think Fall is so gorgeous. Happy (photo) shooting!

XO,
Nancy