Joyful Easter Ornament

Joyful Easter Ornament by Leila Bidler 

I wanted to make something beautiful for our home that would reflect the joyful colors of spring and the upcoming Easter holidays.

Materials:

Makins's Clay® natural, approx 60g or less

Makin's® Clay Roller

Cookie Cutters (Makin's® Clay Cutters are great for this project)

Texture sheets or old doilies to your liking that make a deep impression

Black embossing powder

Gold leaf flakes

Metal leaf adhesive

Skewer

Needle tool

Hand drill

Chalk pastels (I used yellow, green, magenta and blue)

Soft paintbrush

Firm paintbrush

Twine

Wooden stick or piece of a tree branch

Decorative ribbon

Plastic wrap

Clay texture sponge

Instructions:

Roll out your Makins's Clay® natural and mix it with a pinch of black embossing powder. Add a little a time and mix it in, if you think you need more you can always add some. 

When you are satisfied of the mix roll out the clay with the clay roller and impress

texture sheet or old doily of your choice. 

Now take two metal cutters, I choose a bunny and a flower shape, put some plastic wrap on top of your textured sheet and press down firmly with the cutters. This will give you

perfectly rounded edges! 

In case the shape is not completely cut you can use your needle tool to trace along the impression.

Now we need some beads to go with the bunny and the flower:  take your remaining clay and shape 2 big beads, you can easily impress them by putting them on a skewer and rolling them over your texture sheet like so: 

Shape also 6 smaller beads, keep 2 of them round and flatten the remaining 4 into discs and texturize them using a sponge. Roll a thin, elongated shape and texturize it too with your sponge, then roll it up into a spiral bead: 

Now you will need your chalk pastels, a paintbrush and a few drops of water. Scratch off some chalk pastel, feel free to mix colors as you like.

Add a drop or two of water and paint your beads and Easter pendants. Use a paper towel to gently wipe off any excess if you need. 

Let your creations dry for 24 hours.

After they are completely dry use your soft paintbrush to apply your Metal Leaf adhesive only on the raised areas of the textured pendants and the 2 big beads. When it is fresh it is milky-whitish, let it dry for about 10-15 minutes and it will turn completely transparent and sticky. 

The easiest way to apply Gilding Flakes is to keep them in a jar with a lid and to just push in the creation, lift it up, but keep it above your jar and using a paintbrush with firm bristles brush off the excess, back into the jar to use again. 

If you have not already poked holes in the beads with your needle tool before they dried use a hand drill to make holes now. I prefer to drill holes after the creations are dry as they are more precise.

Now wrap your decorative ribbon around the small tree branch, tie a small know on each end to keep it in place. Cut two pieces of twine of about 15" (40cm) and string your beads and pendants and tie them at half length to the branch and the tie them at the top end to create a loop that you can use to hang your decoration on.