Clay jewelry: ideas, master classes for beginners

2024 Author: Sierra Becker | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-26 03:35

Do you want to surprise your loved ones with unusual gifts for the New Year, made by yourself? Modern materials for creativity allow you to create beautiful crafts and accessories without special skills and without much effort. Making clay decorations for the New Year tree is one example of such needlework. If there are children in your house, invite them to have fun and useful time making toys. Handmade things fill the house with warmth and comfort, and the process of their creation turns into pleasant memories.

Types of materials for creating jewelry

To create jewelry, you can use s alt dough, polymer clay or cold porcelain. Each of these molding materials has its own characteristics. But we will consider only one of them - polymer clay. It is also called plastic and is used to create jewelry, figurinesand figurines, dolls and various souvenirs. For Christmas decorations made of clay, you can use a self-hardening material that dries in the fresh air. It is convenient to use because it is softer and the finished product does not need to be kilned or baked in the oven.

Required tools for working with plastic

Self-hardening polymer clay is easy to wrinkle and stretch in the process, retains its shape well after drying. There are a lot of shades in the palette of popular manufacturers, so choosing the right gamut is very easy. It is pleasant to work with the material, suitable for teaching beginners and working with children, as it resembles clay in properties.

To create clay jewelry, you will also need a hard surface, such as ceramic tiles without convex parts or durable glass. As additional tools, you may need cookie cutters, small rolling pins, and a knife. Smooth edges of decorations can be obtained by covering the material with cling film.

How to make an interesting texture

It is easiest to create a relief surface on Christmas tree decorations using textured stamps and natural materials, such as fir branches and spices. Some masters use knitted scarves, ribbons and other objects with a three-dimensional structure for this purpose. To create New Year's decorations from clay, you will also need rhinestones, pigments and brushes for applying them. The easiest way to process the edges of products is with sandpaper. It can also be used to createinvoices.

You can apply a drawing not on the entire surface of the toy, but only on one edge, leaving the space unfilled. A beautiful relief is obtained by pressing a ribbon or braid to the clay. Such jewelry will look unusual and stylish. The use of your own monogram or painting will make them unique. Perhaps such a toy will be passed down from generation to generation and become a family heirloom. The monogram is placed on the back of the product, using a special stencil or stamp for this.

Clay modeling: a master class for beginners

Beginners are recommended to work with polymer clay with gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints. But even if imperfections appear on the surface of the product, they can be hidden later using a special varnish. To create clay jewelry with your own hands, prepare everything you need, and then knead the material well.

Then follow a few simple steps:

1. Roll out the plastic into a sheet 0.5 cm thick and coat one side with a pigment of the chosen color using a brush.
2. Create a textured surface with sandpaper or other embossed material. To do this, place plastic on it and roll it with a rolling pin.
3. On the side with the pigment, place the film to get rounded edges. Then press down on top of the cookie cutter. Remove the film and clean the sides of the future toy from bumps. Make a hole for the string so that the decoration can be hung on the Christmas tree.
4. Applyadditional pattern using rhinestones, buttons or beads.
5. Coat the toys with another coat of pigment.
6. Leave to dry in a dark place for a day.

It is important to keep in mind that after drying, the polymer mass decreases slightly, shrinks. In order to hang toys on a Christmas tree, loops or pins are sometimes screwed into blanks, which are then bent. For decor, instead of pigment, needlewomen use clay of a different color. For example, if you want to make toys look like gingerbread, you can use a brown material as a base, and add white plastic as a glaze. Improvise and bring your ideas to life by combining different colors and shapes.

Advantages of self-hardening polymer plastic

Decorations made of air-cured clay can also be used to create more complex shapes. The advantages of this material include easy processing, the possibility of staining, moisture resistance. From self-hardening plastic it is easy to create a figure of any size and convey the character of the character. For example, you can make a symbol of the year - a yellow clay pig. Such material is more suitable for sculpting than for creating delicate shapes, such as flower petals. For them, special floristic clay is better suited. Another plus of this type of clay is the ability to add details after the product dries. Just soak the part you want to change.

Material imperfections

The disadvantages of using self-hardening plastic experienced craftsmen include the possibility of cracking the edges of products if they are poorly lapped. Wetting them with ordinary water helps to avoid this. And yet, you should carefully monitor the amount of moisture and do not overdo it, otherwise the product will become too fragile. But even jewelry made of clay without flaws must be carefully stored and not dropped, otherwise they may break. The disadvantages of this material can also be attributed to the fact that too thin parts may not fit well with each other. For such crafts, baked plastic is more suitable. When the toys dry, they can be additionally covered with varnish or sparkles, after which you can thread the braid and hang the finished decorations on the Christmas tree.