Clay Leaf Bowls

My mother is an artist and as such has a lot of artist friends. When I was a kid, a couple of them ran various art schools and camps and to show support, my mother sent me. I have very little artistic skill, but I loved the camps, because I got to learn new techniques and work with my hands. I especially loved working with clay. I once made a beautiful pistol replica (I was a weird kid) but it blew up in the kiln so I never saw the fruits of my effort. My lack of skill hasn’t stopped me in the years since, and when I saw these beautiful dishes from Urban Comfort, I thought, “I can do that!” So I did.

First, you need to gather yourself some leaves. Go for the fresh ones, as they’ll be the most flexible. In these sorts of projects everyone seems to go for the beautiful fig leaves and things like that. Well, figs don’t grow in this Arctic wasteland. So I went with what was available: various forms of maple (it is Canada, after all), some ornamental grapes, random roadside vegetation … What ended up working the best, however, in terms of creating easy dishes, was from my own backyard: hostas, nasturtiums, and the gorgeous morning glory that has been tumbling over my fence all summer.

Then grab yourself some air-dry clay (this means you don’t have to shove it in a kiln, though if you have access to a kiln, you should probably use it for these as it will make them much more durable). I picked up a 5kg block of it for $17.49 at DeSerres (actually, I had a gift card, so it was FREE).

Grab a hunk of it and roll it out to your desired thickness. I used a fondant roller to get a smooth surface. The leaves look better in clay about 2mm (~1/8″) thick, but that makes it much more fragile to handle, so you probably want to aim for around 5-7mm (~1/4″). I use this Kitchenaid silicone mat as a work surface for anything non-toxic, including pies. It’s amazing and portable and easy to clean.

Now, I did find that if I went straight to leaf pressing and cutting from this stage, my clay was too firmly stuck to the surface to get a good result.

Accordingly, I carefully peeled the clay sheet off the mat and flipped it onto a piece of parchment paper and went from there. It was just easier and made sure both sides of the sheet of clay were smooth.

Then you grab your leaves and flatten them into your clay. I used the fondant roller again to get them in there nice and good.

These ones I am not turning into dishes – I just wanted to see what effect they would create.

It’s neat.

Use tweezers to get tricky ones out of the clay and pick out any stray bits of debris.

You will have some folds and wrinkles in your leaf, just because it’s hard to press something flat that isn’t naturally flat. But don’t freak out – it just adds to the texture.

Once you’ve gotten your leaf carefully removed you end up with this lovely impression, veins and blemishes and all.

Use the tip of a small sharp knife (Xacto, paring, whatever) to cut along the edge of the leaf and carefully peel away the excess clay.

This was way easier to do with round leaves than with the pointy ones, as you can see, and the round ones made better dishes anyway.

Make a little ring out of aluminum foil and pick up your clay leaf. Bend the leaf into a more natural shape (which it will want to do anyway) and set it inside the ring to dry. Feel free to play with curling the edges up and down, in the way that the leaf would do in nature. I left mine to dry overnight, then I flipped them over (with support) to dry on the bottom for another night.

Now you’re done! It’s up to you what you do with them next. They’re pretty fragile still, so nothing hardcore. My biggest morning glory ones broke along their vein fault lines just from picking them up wrong.

But they make pretty neat little dishes for small items, such as jewelry.

This leaf with a stem makes a nice holder for rings.

The larger nasturtiums make neat bowls for pocket change. In Canada we recently got rid of our penny, but with both our $1 and $2 denominations in coin, we still have plenty of change kicking around!

And these grape leaves make a good place to keep your spectacles, if you’re the type of person who forgets where you put them.

Because the clay is uncured, it tends to scrape off and leave a residue, so I wanted to finish them off a bit. I used an ultra-fine sandpaper to smooth off the edges of each dish. Make sure you do this outside in a well-ventilated area. Not only does the clay dust get everywhere, but you’re also likely to inhale a bunch of it if you’re not careful. Dust off each piece completely before you do anything else. Compressed air is handy for this, but make sure to do it outside.

I then painted each piece with an outdoor satin sealer that adhered pretty well to the clay surface. I like the soft shininess of it and the fact that it didn’t sink into the porous clay and discolour it.

Some of the finished dishes. The one on the left is my favourite, because it’s so thin and delicate. I’m betting good money that whomever I give it to will break it within a week, and it won’t even be that person’s fault.

And some of the bigger ones. I made so many that pretty much everyone on my gift list is getting at least one. And because of that handy gift certificate, this cost me nothing but time!

Superhero Monogram

If you were a superhero, what would the symbol on your cape look like?  We had this conversation recently with Krystopf, Atlas, and Atlas’ sister, shortly after Izod was born, and so I had the idea to design Izod a little logo — you know, just in case he ever ends up being a caped crusader.

“Izod” in Farsi means “angel,” so it was super easy to come up with an idea that would suit.  And there’s this stress test they use for the breakage point of metal called the IZOD test so I figured I would toss that in as well.  Accordingly, I made a giant “I” out of clay, stuck screws in it as it dried, and sprayed it silver to make it look like a piece of metal (sort of).

Then I took a wing graphic I found on the internet and made it into a sort of stencil.

I cut out the shape and used craft paint to fill it in.

Then it was a simple matter to hot glue the clay piece in place. And some keys I nabbed from a mini keyboard.

And that is it.

Alphabet Trays

The only problem I have about hand crafting all my Christmas gifts and then putting them on the blog is that my whole darned family reads it. So it’s kind of hard to keep things under wraps. I try my best, but in this particular case it’s pretty obvious who these are for (because they’re monogrammed, geez).

Anyway, I picked up some air dry clay at DeSerres and thought I’d have a little fun with it.  These little trays are easy to make and a nice little element of home-made personalization for any home.  They’re great gifts for teachers, too, and your kids can make them all by themselves.  They can be hung on the wall or, depending on the size, used as actual trays for non-food items.

Start by working the clay with your hands and rolling it out to be about 1/4″ thick.  With a knife, cut the base of your initial out.  I freehanded this, but measuring with rulers and such would probably help.

Then work on cutting out your sides, making sure they fit the dimensions of your little tray.

You may need to use little snakes of clay, etc., to get the sides to stick on properly.

Use a spoon or a clay smoothing tool to flatten out any cracks at the seams.

Then leave your clay dishes to dry for a while.  These took about three days to dry completely.

There was a little bit of shrinkage at the seams on parts of mine so I just reinforced them with some white glue.

Then I painted them with regular craft paint, and I went with a lighter colour on the inside with the outside edges being a darker version.

The bottoms I painted black with a giant red heart in the middle, because Mags and the Flying Dutchman are such lovebirds.  These are also coated with a spray sealant for longevity. I think it’s pretty cute.

Wee Clay Pot City

When I saw these wee things over at Say Yes to Hoboken I knew immediately who I had to make them for (but I’m not telling you: it’s a surprise).  Perfect for small plants, especially succulents, I could see these forming a little town on someone’s coffee table.

I decided to make my own template for my wee town, so that I could get some variety in the buildings I created.  Just make sure, when you are creating your pattern, that you account for the width of the base and the thickness of your sculpting medium.  It’s all about the math, b’ys.

For this little jobbie you need some Sculpey, a cutting tool (I used a paring knife), a smoothing tool (I used some old manicure tools), and something for rolling out the clay (I used an empty Screech bottle).  You will also need a glass dish for baking your clay, and a work surface that doesn’t stain easily.  Raw Sculpey is pretty toxic, so it’s best to work on waxed paper, parchment, or a silicone mat that you can easily wash.

It’s a simple thing to do, but it takes some time.  First you need to condition your Sculpey by squishing it a bunch with your hands.  Then you roll it out, and cut out your shapes.

When you press them together, make a little snake out of extra clay and use it to seal the edges — you want the wee pot to be water tight after all.

My first go-round, I made my templates too big and so my little houses weren’t really all that little. You can see in the photo below how it sagged under its own weight.  Fortunate thing about Sculpey is you can just squish it all up and start again, which I did.  My new templates work on a 2″ square, and so I can make about four structures out of one pound of clay.

I wanted a bit of variety to my city, so with the white Sculpy I made two regular houses, one house with a slanty roof, and a factory.

Do you see how I raised the floor of the factory on the inside so that the plant would still come out the top?  I know: clever me.

And the basic house:

With the terra cotta coloured Sculpey I made a mansion (or row housing), a city hall and a church.  The church is just the small house with a cross instead of a chimney (which baked a bit wonky), and the city hall is just a big house with a circle cut out of the taller roof to signify a town clock.

Use a smoothing tool to smooth out the edges on the outside, too, and the bottom.

The next part is easy.  You preheat your oven to 275°F and pop your little structures into your glass dish (I lined mine with parchment, just because I find if the clay is right on the glass surface it tends to cook with a glossy flat edge that doesn’t jibe with the rest of the piece).  Bake for 15 minutes per every 1/4″ thickness of Sculpey.  You don’t want to overbake, but as some of my pieces were obviously thicker or thinner than that (yes, we’ve already gone over how much I suck at Sculpey), I go for a round 20 minutes and that seems to work out just fine.

Haul those out of the oven and don’t touch them until they’re cool.  Sculpey is designed to shrink less than 2% while baking so you shouldn’t have much trouble with your watertight seal, but you should check anyway.  If it’s not sealed, just add a touch more Sculpey to the hole and bake it for a few minutes.

I didn’t have enough Sculpey left to make a whole other building, so I made this little round pot.

And then a wee man.  He’s a magician (hence the top hat and cape) and he’s sitting staring at this wee box, thinking.  So I call it Thinking, Outside the Box.  I gave him to the Pie.

And there you have it.  I don’t have any succulents on hand, so you’ll have to imagine them in these shots.  But it’s a cute little town, no?