Desk Set for Dad - Great for Father's Day

Desk Set for Dad

By Carole Monahan

Here is a QUICK and easy gift to make for Dad this Father’s day, even the kids can do most of it!

I wanted this to look like bark or hunting blind I think I accomplished this.

Materials

Makin's Clay® about 2 oz of each color listed

White and Black combined to make a marbled grey

Terrra Cotta and Brown

From the Earth Tone collection one of each

Straw, Light Adobe and Adobe Brown

Tools

Makin's Clay® Ultimate Clay Extruder™ - Disc # 3 multi hole

Makin's Clay® Ultimate Clay Machine™

Makin's Clay® rotary cutter from the Professional Tool Kit (personal favorite thing!)

Makin's Clay® Woodgrain texture sheet from Set D #38004

Makin's Clay® cutting mat

Wooden dowel

Instructions:

Combined the colors until you get one snake with the colors twisted inside.

(Like the top snake in the image below). This has to be skinny enough to fit inside the extruder tube.

I used disc # 3 and make sure after your extrude the strands to cover your strands with a damp towel.

You will need to extrude enough strands to layout to cover the width of the phone and double the length. I ran about 3 tubes of extruded clay for this project.

The left over clay you can be blended to make a base color to lay the strands on.

To get the length of clay for your base use your Ultimate Clay Machine™ and roll to setting 2.

You will need enough length to roll the scroll to be about double the phone’s height when upright.

Note how I left the edge rough to mimic bark (this made me itch a little not to clean up the edges!)

I laid the texture sheet going with the extruded strands like wood grain. I impressed both sides.

I trimmed off the width ends with my rotary cutter. This also adheres the strands to the base. You can even roll it through the Ultimate Clay Machine™ to make it longer if needed.

Now for the rolling part you want the front scroll to be half the height of the back scroll.

I used a dowel for the front shape and a larger acrylic rod for the back scroll.

Note how I used tiles to hold the shape in place while it dried. You can use books.

You want to place your phone in place now while you are setting the shape just to see if it fits.

Let it dry without the phone in there.