AIR DRY CLAY DIY DECOR -FUNCTIONAL- - Speckled Black Pepper, Air Plant Holder, AESTHETIC Ring Dish.

Hello YouTube fam! Welcome or welcome back to my channel. If you're new here, my name is Tina and I make videos on lifestyle, home, and DIY projects every single week. Lately I've been really into making clay projects, so I hope you guys don't mind, but my obsession is so real right now. But this time we are making some air dry clay projects. All the items in today's video are super cute and also functional. So not only are they beautiful to use as decor, but they also serve a purpose. So I really love that I was able to create all these pieces with a giant tub of Crayola air dry clay. I am honestly so obsessed with each one of these projects and it's even better that they actually serve a purpose. And I can't wait to show it to you guys. Before we jump into today's video, I want to give a huge thank you to Ana Luisa who is today's video sponsor. If you're not already familiar with the brand, they have some really gorgeous pieces at an affordable price. And what's better is that they are sustainable and they are carbon neutral. What I really like about the brand is that they make all their jewelry pieces in smaller batches so that way they're able to eliminate excess waste as well as maintain high quality standards. What's really awesome is that they offer fair prices with jewelry starting at $39 and you have a 365 day warranty. So if you run into any issues or need a replacement or refund, they totally have your back. I've been wearing their pieces for a few months now and I'm really such a fan of them. And as you guys can tell, I'm wearing a few of their pieces today. So I have a new dog tag necklace which has honestly become one of my favorites. It's kind of a tiny little arch and then it also comes with this chain so you get both of them together but they are not attached so that way you can layer it if you want to. And I really love that. And I also am wearing a pair of their rocks minis today. They're these tiny little hoop earrings and I really love these ones because I've been looking for a pair of tiny little huggy hoops and these one have a little bit more of a unique shape because they are a little bit more rectangular. I think they're so gorgeous and unique and they're quickly becoming a staple in my closet. And lastly, I got their Anna necklace which is this beautiful, simple, dainty gold necklace. I've been searching for a necklace like this for a while and this one is so perfect. You can totally layer it with so many other pieces or just wear it as is and it's super simple and pretty. If you're interested in checking them out, I would highly recommend that you go over to their site now because they're having their biggest sale of the year. They're doing a buy one get one 40% off. So this is totally the perfect time to buy some items for friends as gifts or even for yourself. Especially with the sale that they're having right now, I would totally recommend that you guys check them out. They have so many different styles that will suit anyone. So if you're interested, I will leave the link down below so that you can shop. So now that you guys have seen all the pieces that I've gotten from Anna Luisa, the first DIY project is going to be perfect to pair with one of these. So let's jump into the first DIY. Hello from voiceover Tina. For each one of these projects, I'm using Crayola air dry clay and I got a pretty big tub of it so I'm really excited to make so many things with it. First, I'm laying down some wax paper which really just helps the clay from sticking from the surface that I'm working on. Then I'm taking some clay and rolling it into a thick coil and I'm going to make sure that it's thinner on one end and wider on the other. And this is going to create the holder that we're going to put our rings on. I also rolled it onto the table and that worked out pretty well for me too. Once I was happy with the shape, I'm just going to let it sit on the side to harden. Next, we're going to work on the base of the holder and essentially I'm just rolling the clay flat with my soda can. Which by the way, I finally ordered a little rolling pin for clay so that should be coming soon and you guys don't have to see this coke can anymore. Then I'm taking the bottom of this glass container and I'm laying the clay right on top. I'm going to take my fingers to flatten it to the bottom of the canister and I really like this container because it has a slight dip to it which I found to be perfect for creating little jewelry dishes. You can also use a bowl or a cup to create the shape or you can also hand build the shape so use whatever you have at home. After that, I'm taking out my exacto knife and cutting out my circle shape. Once I was happy with it, I took my water and clay combo aka slip and I just used that to smooth out the surface with my fingers. You could also use a sponge or a foam brush but I found that my fingers worked just fine. And if it's not perfectly smooth, that is totally fine. We can smooth it out again later. Now it is time to attach the holder to the dish and to do this I'm going to score the center of the dish by creating some hatch marks with my exacto knife. Then I'm cutting my holder down to size and I'm just going to score the bottom of that as well. Now I'm putting a little bit of slip to the bottom of the holder and I'm just going to place it right onto the dish. And doing the slipping and scoring technique is really going to help make a stronger bond between the two pieces so they don't come apart. And then to conceal the lines in between the two pieces, I'm just going to add some more wet clay to smooth it all out. And I really took my time to add on a little bit more water to the rest of the dish to make this look as seamless as possible. Using water is going to be your best friend when working with air dry clay. It just smooths everything out and just gets rid of all the little tiny cracks and hand prints and all the little imperfections. So here's how it's looking so far. I'm And while we're waiting for that to dry, I'm going to start creating my little star shapes. So first I'm going to roll out a really thin piece of clay. This is going to be a lot thinner than our dish. And then I'm using this tiny wooden star as a guide to trace out my shapes with my knife. I also tried to cut out my moon shape with a bottle cap as you can see here, but that was a total fail so please ignore that. So now I'm going to go around each one of the stars and I'm just pulling away the clay and here's how they're looking. Okay now going back to that moon, I just used my bottle cap to trace out the crescent shape, but I did not use it as a cutter. I found that whenever I do that with any lids or jars, it always just gets stuck to the clay. So tracing it instead is a way better technique. And how cute do these look? They're so tiny and cute and I'm just going to let them set aside to dry for a little bit. After about an hour to an hour and a half, I came back to my project and here's how they're looking. As you can see, the clay has hardened a bit and it's going to make this a lot easier to handle, so this is the perfect time to add on our little stars and moon. And to do this, I'm using the same slip and score technique to bond each one of the shapes to the dish. I'm also going to take this opportunity to add more water to the piece and just smooth everything out as much as possible before I let it dry completely. I love working with air dry clay because it really makes me feel like I'm back in ceramics class in school. I've only taken hand building classes so far, so I'm really excited to one day take a wheel throwing class, but for now I'm using all the same techniques that I've learned from those classes with the air dry clay and it's just so much fun to work with. So once I was happy with how everything was looking, I'm just going to let that dry completely before moving on to the next step. Alright, so now it's the next day. It takes about 24 hours to dry depending on how thick your clay is, but here's how everything's looking. You can leave this as is, but I'm going to make it very similar to the original by starting to paint it white. Now I'm going to add in some speckles with a mixture of black acrylic paint and water and I'm basically just going to flick the paint onto the dish by tapping it on my finger. And for the moon and the stars, I'm also going to paint it black. After all the paint has dried, you can go ahead and seal it. I will list a couple of options of what you can use in the description box down below, but I'm just using what I already had at home. How cute did this turn out? I absolutely love how it looks styled with all my jewelry pieces. You can totally personalize it with different colors and even shapes on the dish and there are so many cute designs that you can do and I honestly impressed myself with how well this turned out. Like, who would have guessed this was made with Crayola air dried clay? I just think it looks so good and I hope you guys are inspired to create this project as well. Of course, I had to make another plant-related air dry clay project and this one is going to be all about slab building. So essentially, we'll be working with flattened pieces of clay, so I'm starting off by rolling a big piece of clay as evenly as possible. One trick you can actually do is to lay out pieces of wood on both sides at the exact thickness you want and that is really going to ensure that your clay is even. I don't have any pieces on hand right now, but if you guys want to try out this technique, I would highly recommend it. Next, I'm going to cut out my shapes. So we're going to start off by creating two half circles and I'm using a protractor to do this, but you could totally just trace out a circle and then cut that in half. I'm also cutting out a rectangular piece and this is going to wrap around our two half circles, so I'm going to make sure that it's long enough and remove the excess clay from each one of the pieces. After that, I let it dry for about half an hour and I'm just going to smooth it with water and I always like to let it sit for a little bit so then the clay can harden and this makes it so much easier to handle. I'm also going to take this time to cut out a little circle on the rectangle piece. I just used a bottle cap and this is going to be where our air plant goes, so make sure that you center it as best as possible. Then I moved all the pieces onto another piece of wax paper and I let it dry for about an hour before assembling the pieces together. Alright, now it's time to put it all together, so I'm taking the two half circles and I'm standing them up straight and here you'll see that I'm going to use a crumpled piece of paper in the middle and this is just going to help it keep in place and also hold its shape. Then I'm laying the rectangle slab right on top of that and I'm going to cut off the excess clay on both sides. Now that everything fits together perfectly, I'm going to bond them all by scoring all the sides that the pieces touch and then I'm adding on the slip to join them together. And for this step, I'm really going to take my time to make sure that everything is bonded well together and I'm also going to smooth everything out, just trying my best to blend it all together and eliminate the lines as best as possible. This is super important in making the three pieces look like one cohesive piece. Now I'm moving my piece over to another piece of wax paper and I'm going to let it dry. So one of my biggest tips on working with air dry clay is to check on it after about 12 hours and if you notice that it's not looking super smooth, you can always add in a little bit more water before it's hardened completely. After the clay is all dry, I'm going to paint the entire piece and you guys know that I love my warm color palette, so of course that's what I went in with. For this, I'm just using regular old acrylic paint and you can really get creative and use whatever colors you'd like. After I did the first coat, I actually decided to go in with baking soda paint in a darker color and this just gives it more of a stone texture and I think this works so well to give it a ceramic look. So I did this for each of my colors. I turned them into baking soda paint and I just used that to paint on three curved stripes to create my rainbow. And make sure you seal your piece. So again, I'm going in with this matte one and it took about two coats and it's ready to go. And how cute does this air planter look? You can make it in so many different colors and sizes. It's such a fun and colorful addition to house your little plant babies and I love it so much. I saved the easiest and quickest project for last and I think you guys are really going to like this one. So I'm just taking my clay and I'm going to roll it into a ball. I first like to roll it in a circular motion on the table and then I'm just going to take it in between my hands to form the ball. Next, I'm taking some of this rainbow peppercorn and I'm going to grind it right on top of the clay. After I have a good amount on there, I'm just going to roll the clay right onto the pepper and the ground up pepper is going to give it such a cool speckled stone texture. You can also use regular pepper as well but this is just what I have and I think the colors look so gorgeous. And you basically want to repeat this until you get your desired effect. I saw this technique from the Sari Girls a couple years ago and most recently did it on her stories and I immediately knew that I had to try it and I'm so glad I did because I think it looks so good. So now that it's all covered and speckled, I'm going to flatten the bottom of it and I'm just doing this by cupping my hand on top and I'm going to squish it downwards so that it becomes more of a dome shaped rather than a ball of clay. After that, I'm taking one of my tapered candles and I'm sticking that right into the middle. I'm also going to twirl it around a little bit just to make the hole a little bit bigger. Air dry clay actually shrinks when it dries so I definitely want to account for that by widening the hole a little bit. Now just let it sit to dry and that's all there is to it. Oh my god you guys, this is one of my favorite new techniques ever. I think the speckling effect is so gorgeous. These look so earthy and stony and it was seriously so easy and fast to do. You can add a gloss finish to it or keep it matte like I did but there are so many cool projects that you can do with this technique and I would highly recommend that you guys try this one out if you haven't already. Alright guys, so those were all the projects for today's video. Let me know in the comments down below which one was your favorite. I honestly cannot choose one. I always say this in all my videos but truly I cannot pick because each one of these is so special to me. They all are so cute and functional and I'm really obsessed with the black pepper technique. I think you guys should totally try it out because it came out so so good. I still have about half a tub of clay left so I'm for sure making more projects with my clay and I hope you're excited for more clay videos because like I said at the beginning, I am totally obsessed. And again, a huge thank you to Ana Luisa for sponsoring today's video. If you're interested in checking out their sale, definitely click on the link down below. Even if I'm just at home or hopping on a Zoom call, I always like to put on a little pair of earrings so that I feel a little bit more presentable. So if you're the same way and want to give yourself a little bit of a treat, definitely check them out. And as always, thank you to you guys for watching my videos. I really enjoy making all these DIY projects and it kind of feels like having a little art class to myself every single week. So thank you guys for watching and if you have any suggestions for future videos, leave them down in the comments. I'm always open to hearing new ideas and you guys always send me the best suggestions so let me hear them down below. If you like this video, give it a big thumbs up and subscribe for new videos every single week. Follow me on Instagram if you haven't already. I'm posting on there every single day. And that is it for today's video. Stay inspired and I'll see you in the next one. Bye!