You don’t need a kiln or a wheel to make beautiful pottery creations – with air-dry clay, the world is your oyster! Here are our favourite air-dry clay projects to try at home.
CACTUS RING HOLDER
If you’ve found yourself crushing over ring holders but never wanted to splash the necessary cash to buy one for yourself, you’re in luck – they make for the perfect air-dry clay project! All you’ll need is some air-dry clay, craft paint or pens and some glue for this gorgeous cactus ring holder by Little Red Window. Make the base yourself and have your children decorate their own, or let them get creative making their own shapes.
MOON PHASE WALL MOBILE
Wall hangings are some of the easiest art pieces to make yourself, and we love this DIY moon phase one by The Merry Thought. Perfect for a nursery or a calm reading nook, all you’ll need for this beautiful project is some air-dry clay, string, dowel, a rolling pin and cookie cutter, a skewer and a drill. We love the monochrome look, but you could also have fun painting each moon in colours to suit your space.
COLOURFUL PLANTERS
Whilst air-dry clay sadly isn’t food safe, and can’t withstand being filled with water, it does make for a beautiful medium to decorate your existing plant pots with. For this project by Handmade Charlotte, you’ll need some basic pots (terracotta or otherwise), a paintbrush, waterproof acrylic paint in colours of your choice, coloured clay, a hot glue gun and something to cut the clay with. Have your children create their own clay masterpieces, then bake and glue them onto your pretty painted planter – they’re such a great gift for friends and family, or home décor piece!
FOOTPRINT BOWL
Speaking of beautiful gifts, you can turn air-dry clay into the ultimate baby keepsake with this one simple project. According to this awesome guide by Messy Little Monster, it’s as easy as: 1) pressing your child’s feet into the rolled-out clay; 2) cutting around their feet in a heart shape; and 3) placing the heart-shaped cut out into a bowl to curl up the edges. To make the imprint stand out, fill it in with paint when the clay is dry.
CUTE CATS
If you’ve got a cat lover in the family, they will love this one – and for the non-cat lovers, we’re sure you can turn these clay faces into dogs, too! For this project by Nurture Store, take some balls of air-dry clay, roll them out and cut shapes for the ears and cheeks to make your cat face. Once dry, let your children paint the cat faces in whatever colours they like. When the paint is dry, you can draw the details of the cat’s face and ears onto each piece of clay – or, let your children do it!
