One of my favourite crafts to make using air-dry clay is a trinket dish. I’ve made a simple round dish with leaf imprints, a leaf shape dish, and my latest is the heart shape dish I made for Valentine’s Day.
It’s not so obvious that I’m becoming obsessed with air-dry clay. Well, it’s cheap, easy to use, and it’s a very versatile medium that you can create anything.
Trust me you’ll love using air-dry clay. You can start with a very easy project like the leaf imprint coaster then later, you can explore different techniques.
Plus you don’t need any fancy tools to start with. You’ll need air-dry clay, the brand that I tried is DAS Modelling Clay.
I also DIY a clay made out of glue and cornstarch. There are two versions, the cooked and no-cooked air dry clay. You can start with this. Though it tends that the finished product using this recipe to crack when dries out.
Other tools are things that you might have on hand, like a knife, a bottle to roll the clay, round objects, bowls, etc.
Although air-dry clay is non-toxic, I still suggest that you separate your utensils used for craft projects and foods.
How to Make Heart-Shaped Trinket Dish
Here’s a video if you prefer to watch how I made the heart-shaped dish using air-dry clay.
You’ll Need:
Air-Dry Clay
Bottle/Rolling Pin
Acrylic Paint
Gold Metallic Paint
Polyurethane
Paint Brush
Roll the clay using a bottle. Also, try to roll and turn the clay so that it won’t stick to the surface.
You can use wooden dowels to level the thickness of the clay.
Cut a heart shape on cardstock. This will be the template to cut a heart shape of clay.
Cut about 1 cm width of clay and the length should be enough to cover around the side of the heart. This will be the side of the dish.
Score the edges of the heart where you want to put the side of the dish. And put a little bit of air-dry clay slip, then attach the sidings.
Carefully polish the side and corner using your finger. You can also use a brush or sponge. The air-dry clay slip can also be used to cover some cracks.
Then let it dry completely. For this project, it took 3 days before it dried completely.
Then paint it with acrylic paint. I added glue metallic paint on the edges to give that contrast to the Fuschia pink paint.
Finally, I brush polyurethane to make it glossy and protect the clay dish.
My Thoughts About This Project
If you are thinking of a DIY gift, this heart-shaped dish is definitely a must-try craft. It can be tricky to make this, especially the part of attaching the sidings. But once you get the hang out of it, you can easily make it.