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.

Halloween Plaque with Makin's Clay®

Halloween Home Decor
Designed by Irit Shalom

Hello my dear crafty friends and welcome to my Halloween Home Decor project.  This is a tall decorative piece made over the recycled chipboard piece of packaging, but then every single piece of it is made with Makin's Clay® and arranged into this Halloween scene.

Products Used:

Makin’s Clay® 

• White, Plum Wine, Black, Neon Yellow Clay
• Cutters-3 pc Round
• Halloween set- 12 pieces
• Texture Sheets- Set D- Stars, Woodgrain

Makin’s Professional® 

• Roller and Cutters set
• Cutting Mat

Chipboard base 

Beacon™ 3-in-1 Adhesive 

Glaze

Gold glitter 

DecoArt® Media™ acrylic paint - orange

Permanent pigment crafters ink

Heat tool 

Background rubber stamps for adding details to cut shapes 

Die cutting machine

Halloween dies - spiderweb and haunted house 

Instructions:

So here is my step by step tutorial for you:

1. Add a bit of orange acrylic paint to white clay to make the orange colored clay. 

Add paint to clay

Blend to combine

Just blend the clay and paint to get the real color orange as seen on the second photo.

Roll to blend clay pieces

2. Roll black, plum wine and the mixed orange clay until it is very thin.  Just tear the rolled clay pieces and arrange them totally randomly over the chipboard then roll again to adhere all shades together over the chipboard.

Add textures 

3. Use two Texture sheets from set D (Stars and Woodgrain) to make the texture over the rolled clay. Use wooden texture on the bottom and star texture on the top of your piece. Let the background dry.

Cut assorted shapes

4. Use Clay Cutters from the Halloween set,  cut a few Halloween shapes using white, black and orange (blended) clay. In this photo you see more shapes than those finally used on the project. Let them dry.

Stamp your shapes

5. Stamp textures with background stamps over the dry cut shapes as shown. I used pigmented crafting ink and my heat gun to  make the ink permanent.

Die cut dry clay sheets

6. Roll a very thin piece of black clay with the roller, and let it dry.  Then die cut with your dies.  

7. Arrange your die cut and cut shapes over the background.

Arrange your elements 

As you can see I added a mixed clay circle under the funky moon shape (mixing plum wine and neon yellow clay together and using round cutter.  The I arranged the moon over the circle. Add a thin layer of neon yellow clay under the haunted house shape as shown before you glue the house over the piece.

Layer haunted house over neon yellow clay

Arrange  all other stamped shapes and glue them over the background using Beacon™ 3-in-1 Adhesive.

8. Cover the whole piece with glaze and add some golden glitter around the shapes and over the piece.

Hang your finished Halloween plaque

Steampunk Skull Figurine with Makin's Clay®

SKULLDUGGERY! Design Team Member Patricia Krauchune is up to her spooky tricks again... this time she created this Steampunk skull and tombstone entirely from Makin’s Clay®…gears, a spring and other findings adorn this creepy dude and Beacon’s™ Tacky Glue keeps him all together. 

Nightmare Catcher with Makin's Clay®

NIGHTMARE CATCHER 
Designed by Patricia Krauchune

Following the theme of a dream catcher, I made this Nightmare Catcher. All your scary dreams will be caught in this web.

Supply List:

Makin's Clay®: Glow-in-dark / Black	Small piece of chicken wire/wire to attach to hoop.	Small piece of plastic
Beacons™ Tacky Glue	Martha Stewart Crafts™ Black Nickel Paint	Plastic Spider
Beacon™ 3-in-1 Glue	Adirondack® Alcohol Inks: Red Pepper	Black Marker
Beacon™ Power-Tac	XMas Red Stickles™	Spider Webbing: (Michael's)
Beacon Quick Grip™	Jewelry Thread	Piece of hemp for hanger
6" Embroidery Hoop

Recommended Makin’s® Tools:

Makin's Professional® Ultimate Clay Machine®	Makin's® Clay Cutter Halloween Set A
Makin's Clay ® Cutting Mat

Instructions:

1. Paint the embroidery hoop with the Martha Stewart Crafts™ Black Metallic paint.

2. Cut some chicken wire to fit  the outside diameter of the hoop.

Prepare your hoop

3. With some wire, lash the chicken wire to the hoop. Add some dobs of Beacon™ Power-Tac to several spots on back to further secure the chicken wire to the hoop. Then run a bead of Beacon™ 3 in 1 Glue around the entire back perimeter.

Add the chicken wire 

4. Roll out some Glow in the Dark clay on the #1 setting of the Ultimate Clay Machine®. Cut out a skull from the clay using either a craft knife or scissors.

Roll the glow in the dark clay

Trace your skull template

5. You also want to cut out, from the Glow in the Dark clay, 4 ghosts using the Halloween Set A clay cutters. When the ghosts are dry, add some tacky glue to one ghost, lay some jewelry thread into the glue then top with another ghost. Make another ghost "sandwich". Draw eyes and a mouth on each ghost with a black marker.

Make your ghost "sandwiches"

6. When the skull is dry, add a small piece of plastic that you tinted with Red Adirondack® Alcohol Ink to back of skull with 3 in 1 Glue.  Turn skull over and add XMas Red Stickles™ to the eye, nose and mouth openings. Set aside to dry.

Add your red accents

7.  After the Stickles has dried, attach the completed skull to the front of the hoop and secure from the back with Beacon Quick Grip™ glue at points where there is wire.  Make a hanger from a small piece of hemp and attach it to the hoop screw. 

Mount the skull

Back view

8. Now roll out some black on the number 1 setting on the clay machine. Using the Halloween cutter set, cut out a cat and three bats.  

9. I had a plastic spider from Michaels' and I painted an hourglass figure on the spiders back.

Roll black clay 

Cut cat and bats

Add detail to your spider

10. I attached the two ghosts that are on the jewelry line to the bottom of the hoop. Now is the time you use your imagination and glue the bats, cat and spider to a spot that suits your fancy.  I painted little green eyes on the cat and bats and I also glued some spider webbing that I purchased at Michaels to give my catcher a spookier look. 

Have fun and remember all is possible with Makin's Clay®.

Ready to hang!