Christmas Crafting: Fun With Air Dry Clay And DIY Tree Ornaments🎄

Disclaimer:  I haven't been paid to promote any shops, nor gifted any products, just wanted to share my latest little crafting smiles x

Hi Honeys
Well, here we are in December.  I really can't believe how quickly this year has gone by.  I'm so sorry I haven't posted before now, the cold and damp weather are causing my arthritis to flare, so mostly I've been camping out on the sofa with our sweet furbaby.  Bless her, she never minds keeping her Mum company and sharing a fluffy throw💖 

While staying warm on the sofa with Jade and (to try) to battle the aches and stiffness in my hands, I decided to attempt to make some Christmas tree ornaments from air dry clay.  It was such a lot of fun and I'm so pleased at how they turned out...   

Air dry clay, because there's no need to bake your creations, really is the perfect crafting medium for fun craft projects for little ones in the run up to Christmas 🎅🎄

Why not go grab a warm cuppa honeys and meet me back here in a few minutes and I'll share some crafting smiles 💖

Welcome back honeys, do you have your cuppa?  Me too ☕  Good grief it's cold in that kitchen! The heating is on, the boiler is working away but we're in the grip of a bitter snap of weather this week.  While waiting for the kettle to boil I popped outside with some food for our garden guests, the grass is white with frost and they especially need our help at this time of year. 

Make yourself comfortable then dear ones and I'll (hopefully) share some little crafting smiles 😊

You might remember I recently added a few things to my crafting collection, including some new cookie cutters to use with my air dry clay.  I had thought they might be ideal to make some clay Christmas decorations or possibly a pretty addition to a ribbon tied around a Christmas gift?
 

There are six cookie cutters in the set, a gingerbread man, a Christmas tree, a shooting star, an angel, a snowman and a bell. Of course I immediately had my favourite honeys 💗  I'm getting ahead of myself 😊

You might remember I recently made some poppies and roses during Remembrance week...  

I had also tried making a couple of Christmas trees, a snowman and two little angels. 

I decided to try using some of the new terracotta clay I'd bought, but hadn't tried yet, to make the gingerbread men cookie decorations...

Having tried using the terracotta clay, I've now learned honeys that it's a bit messy.  The terracotta dye ended up all over my hands and stained all the wood of one of the little clay rollers 😊  The clay is lovely though and made perfect little gingerbread men cookie decorations...

As you can see, I made lots of little angels.  Well,  I did say I had a favourite cookie cutter 💖  All over our home you'll find little angels dotted around.  They're peeping out from bookcases, sitting on shelves and each one makes me smile 😊 

I'm so pleased with these little angels honeys.  I left them plain white in colour and painted their wings silver, as well as around the hole I made for the silver ribbon which made me smile because it looks a little like a tiny halo...
 

I added the silver, glittery ribbon loops to the decorations by threading the ribbon through the holes I made before allowing the clay to set.  I then secured the ribbon with a small knot which, once tied, I gently pulled through to the back of the ornament.

As you can see, I experimented with adding glitter to an angel and as decorations on a Christmas tree too...

My favourites though were the plainer decorations.  A sort of "less is more" theme I suppose 😊

So, the Christmas trees have a small, silver pot at their base, a pretty red, glittery ribbon and were painted with three layers of glittery green craft paint (which I actually ended up with all over my fingers and fingernails too... oh well, every girl wants to sparkle lol.) 

I painted the bell silver and then added gold, glittery ribbon...

I used the same beautiful, glittery, golden ribbon for both of the gingerbread men cookies and painted their eyes and mouths on with white acrylic paint, in the hope it might resemble icing sugar, just like my edible gingerbread cookies 😊  Now that I'm thinking about it honeys, I haven't made any gingerbread cookies in a while... OK, now I have to make some gingerbread cookies 😄

I added some dots of the green glittery craft paint I used for the trees (and some red) to them for their buttons too.

It really was fun making these little decorations honeys and I'll be making more too.  As I said, they're not only a fun method of physio to help keep arthritic hands moving, they're so much fun to make that little ones would enjoy making them too. 

I'm thinking of making more to use as DIY tags to thread with ribbon around Christmas gifts too 💖

Till next time dear ones, stay warm, smile lots and hug even more, hugs always xx