Painting on Clay Jars

Hi guys! I’ve got another DIY Decor tutorial to share with you. I found these jars that were used for school projects that were due to be thrown out. I really wanted to save them and make them fit the vibe of my home so I decided to paint them using different design inspirations.

As these pots have all been previously painted on, the first thing that I needed to do was to cover everything with a base coat of white acrylic paint. Once every jar had been painted white, I set these aside to dry completely.

Boho Chic-So, for the first project, I wanted to do a boho chic design. To achieve this look, I decided to cover the center with natural burlap. I measured about two inches from the center and measured the same width on the burlap. Then I cut off the excess. The next thing that I did was I mixed a dark shade of green with white to make mint green. Once the entire jar had been coated, I set it aside to dry completely.

When the paint had dried, I got some glue and attached the burlap fabric to the center of the jar. Finally, I coated the entire jar, including the burlap fabric with Mod Podge and let it dry completely.

Industrial-The second jar’s inspiration are the concrete décor that I see so often on pinterest. This was actually a difficult redesign because the jar was painted black and I suspect that the paint originally used on it was poster paint because every time it stuck to something, the paint would chip or leach on to my white base coat. The plan was to paint everything gray and then dry brush it with black. I had to keep going back to it because of the chipped paint, but eventually, it did get to a point where everything was covered. I quickly brushed the jar with mod podge and that did the trick to seal everything.

Farmhouse-The third jar’s inspiration is another popular design theme—farmhouse. For this craft, you will need a bit of polymer clay. I wanted the jar to have this milk jug vibe so I fashioned handles for it using polymer clay. Once I created the shape of the handles, I baked the clay following the instructions on the packaging. Once the clay handles had been baked, I attach it to the sides of the jar with glue. Then, when it had dried, I painted everything white. Then, I dry brushed the entire jar with gray.

Pastel-And finally, I decided to do something pastel. Of the four, I have to say that this is my least favorite and only because the glue gun did not cooperate with me, and I couldn’t make straight, neat lines. I decided that I wanted to have some texture in this jar, and I thought that making the lines with the glue gun would work. In fairness, I still think that it would have worked, but I think that it would have looked better if I let my lines run along the entire jar.

And these are my four upcycled and redesigned jars. I hope you got some ideas on how to decorate your own clay pots.

DIY Christmas Decor

It’s been a while since I last shared a craft tutorial. Well, since it’s Christmas and I know a lot of us are trying to get smarter with our money because of this pandemic, I thought that for this year, I would only being making my own decor. In this tutorial, I want to share some very easy DIY projects with you.

This first one is just something that you can put around the house, on shelves, on coffee tables, basically, anywhere that can use a touch of Christmas.

Christmas Tin Can

You will need the following: a used and washed can (this one is from a canned good), Christmas ribbon (recycled, preferably), twine, burlap holly, plastic figs (from an old wreath perhaps), glue gun and plier.

  1. The first thing that you need to do is to remove any label from the can. Then, bend the sides of the can so that the edges don’t cut you. I also glued some paper twine around the opening for extra protection.
  2. I got the ribbon and glued this around the can. I glued a second ribbon for contrast (note that you can switch up the colors to suit your overall Christmas theme).
  3. I then cut a small piece of burlap, about an inch, to hide where the ends of my ribbon were glued.
  4. Then, I tightly would up some paper twine to glue at the base of then can. This will hold my figs upright.
  5. I decorated my twigs with a bit of holly first before I stuck them to the bottom of the can.
  6. Optional: You can add some tulle, or green fruits bags and fashion them as leaves.
  7. Optional: You can use a white marker to put touches of white on the ends of the fig to make them look like they’ve been snowed on.

I hope that you learned something from this tutorial! For the full tutorial, do head on to the Craft Time Studio – https://youtu.be/0A3n9SoLlh0

Clay Slab Tutorial

I’ve been claying on weekends and so far have been really obsessed with making clay slabs. It’s a really simple way to make a lot of fun and funky earrings.

For this tutorial, I will teach you how to make a clay slab in bold colors.

For this slab, you will need:

polymer clay in glitter black, gray, turquoise, periwinkle and pink

mountain-shaped clay cutters

detail needles

clay blade

clay roller

What to do: 1. Flatten your main slab (black) into the number 3 setting on your clay roller.

2. Flatten your accent slab in the number 7 setting.

3. Get your clay cutters and punch out the shapes.

4. Arrange the shapes on the main slab and flatten using the number 2 setting.

5. Add texture by using a detail needle.

6. Cut into earrings, and then bake the clay following the instructions on the packaging.

I hope you enjoy making these super simple clay slabs!

Cookie Squishy from Used Makeup Sponges

My daughter and I love watching this Youtube craft channel, Moriah Elizabeth. One of her most popular series is her squishy makeovers.

We tried it out using my old makeup sponges and I’m happy to report that it actually works!

To make these cookie squishies, you will need:

3 pcs 3D Paint

Acrylic Paint

Paint brush

Popsicle sticks

Fabric glue

Scissors

Mod Podge (Optional)

What to Do:

1. Get one makeup sponge. Cut about ¼ inch around the sponge.

2. Slather a thin layer of fabric glue on top of the makeup sponge. Get another makeup sponge and put it on top of the sponge with glue.

3. Do the same on the other side so that the smaller sponge gets “sandwiched” between the two bigger sponges. Set aside to dry.

4. Once the fabric glue dries, coat the entire sponge sandwich with 3D paint. Set aside to dry.

5. Once the 3D paint dries, coat the entire sponge sandwich with acrylic paint.

You can decorate your cookie squishy any way you prefer. Optional: You can also coat the squishy with a layer of Mod Podge.

P.S. Moriah Elizabeth did discourage the use of acrylic paint because they tend to crack . I just wanted to be honest and let you know that I used acrylic paint because I didn’t have a wide color choice from my 3D paint. The paint on the squishy did eventually crack, but it took a long while, probably because I did do a first coat of 3D paint.

Summer Crafts for Kids #3: Gaudi-inspired Coaster

Since we’re always at the beach these days, we got to collect a lot of sea glass. At a certain point, we had one too many. So, we thought of another super simple craft to make use of these beautiful beach finds.

Level of Difficulty: Beginners

In this craft activity, you will need:

Used paper bowl (cleaned and dried)

Sea glass

Scissors

Silicon

Acrylic paint

Paint brush

What to Do:

  1. Cut the bottom of the paper bowl.
  2. Flip it and paint the sides with acrylic paint. Set aside to dry.
  3. Once the paint is dry, fill the bottom with silicon. (Note: silicon sets very quickly so your sea glass pieces should be on hand).
  4. Decorate with sea glass. Leave overnight to dry.

Summer Crafts for Kids #2: Bohemian Keychain

As a tourist in a foreign country, I found it very challenging to engage my child in crafts, while making sure that 1.) we don’t spend on too many craft supplies that we can’t bring home and 2. We also don’t create more garbage.

As a result of some creative thinking, we came out with this very simple and whimsical accessory.

Level of Difficulty: Beginners. This is literally a 5-minute craft. The only part that took long was for the glue to dry.

In this craft activity, you will need:

0.5 cm wide ribbons, cut into 8 cm strips  (the ones we had on hand were from clothing tags)

Jump ring

All purpose glue

Feathers (*optional. We picked these feathers on the beach)

What to Do:

  1. Get a strip and fold into half.
  2. Attach to the jump ring using a cow hitch knot.
  3. Continue to do this until you’ve covered about half of the jump ring.
  4. To achieve a more bohemian look, you can also glue feathers.

 

Summer Crafts for Kids #1: Aqua Beads

It’s summer once again and for parents, this means that a lot of time will be spent on thinking of what to do with the kids at home. Luckily, I’ve discovered that there are a lot of simple and relatively inexpensive crafts to do with the kiddos to make sure that their time is occupied on meaningful endeavors, and not just mindless play (eg. Internet surfing, etc.).

Level of Difficulty: Beginners

For this craft activity, you will need:

  • Aqua beads set (which includes templates, aqua beads, water spray, and layout tray)
  • Clean bottle with lid
  • Glue gun

What to Do:

  1. Put the layout tray on top of the bottle lid so that you can measure how big your design can be.
  2. Start putting the beads on the tray to make your design.
  3. Once you’re happy with the design, spritz the entire thing with water. Let it dry overnight as the beads will not attach properly if the water is not completely dry.
  4. Glue the pattern to the lid using glue gun.

The advantage of this craft is that the beads come in a variety of colors. They also sell beads by the pack. The disadvantage is that once the kids get a hang of making them, they can finish quite quickly. Challenge them to a game of making the most number of designs.

Watch out every Wednesday for a new set of summer crafts!

Rainbow Rain Craft Tutorial

Hello!! It’s been a while since I did a tutorial. It’s not because I don’t craft anymore. It’s more of because I’ve been doing so many, but failing to take pics of the steps =)

So for this craft, I’m featuring my daughter’s work of art. I’ve always encouraged my daughter to craft. So, when she saw a tutorial on melting crayons, she decided she’d try it out!

For this craft, we used:

clean paper, a printout of a silhouette of her original drawing, scissors, old crayons, double-sided tape, glue gun and a blower

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What to do:

  1. Using your glue gun, stick the crayons to the top of the paper.16E653FD-AFFA-48A0-9DC7-0A78DBDF2A99
  2. Cut the outline of the silhouette and stick this to the bottom of the page using double-sided tape.
  3. Melt the crayons using the blower. Hold the paper standing up so that the melted crayons flow downwards.5E1FFAC9-038E-4083-A32F-8A9855EC51BA
  4. Let this dry completely. You can add cutout of clouds to make it even cuter! You can mount this on a frame and hang as a room decor.

This is definitely a kid-friendly craft that’s quick to make and a lot of fun! (Also, I didn’t spend a cent on this =)

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Tiny Knick Knack Jars

Hello crafters!

It’s been a while since my last craft post. Apologies, but no excuses. I am a strong believer that if you want to get something done, you make time for it. So this is me, carving out some time to post a new project for you to try out.

I love tiny things, I love organizing and I love upcycling! So for this easy five-minute project, I combined my three loves.

For this craft, you will need–

*washed, cleaned and dried glass jam jars (the one that you usually see in hotels)

*paper tape

*circular stickers

*supplies (paperclips, pushpins, etc.)

What to Do:

  1. Fill your jam jars with supplies. Sometimes, I like to put monocromatic stuff inside (eg. same-colored pins, paperclips, etc.). Or if I’m feeling playful, I’ll mix all different colors in one jar!

2. Get your paper tape and cut the end into an inverted V. I do this by folding my tape in half and cutting the end at an angle. Stick the end of the tape to the metal lid of the jam jar.

 

3. Finally, I put my circular stickers on top of the lid. As you can see from the materials I used, most of them were in the gold color theme.

Happy crafting!

Customized Kiddie Shoes

I really love making my daughter smile. It’s part of the reason why I craft. So for another easy tutorial, I designed this pair of shoes for my daughter. 

You will need:

Canvas shoes

Pencil

Acrylic paint
Paintbrush 

Ribbon

What to do:

1. Pick a design that you want to paint on the canvas shoes and trace it on the shoe itself. I picked a cat drawing because my daughter loves cat faces. 

2. Paint it on. 

3. Sew matching bows on top of the canvas shoe.