Friday, May 1, 2015

Flower and Star Clay Ring Bowls

Have you ever worked with clay?  I'm a clay novice and I always get slightly nervous thinking that we need a kiln.  But I was totally wrong! There are lots of great, affordable air dry clay options out there.  Since my son loves play dough, working with clay has been a really great activity for us to do together.  With Mother's Day right around the corner, here are some super easy DIY flower and starry night clay ring bowls that you can whip up with your children!


DIY Flower and Starry Night Clay Ring Bowls

kids craft for Mother's Day gift- clay flower ring bowls, super easy and super fun!

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To start off, we used Model Magic.  Here's the exact type that we used below!

model magic used to make easy air dry ring bowls with kids

This was such a great medium to work with because the colors were already pre-mixed and the clay was really easy to squish with our fingers.  Although it looks like play dough, the texture was airy and spongy, not dense at all!  The clay also stuck together super easily, so once two colors touched each other, it was difficult to pry them apart.

To make the bowls, we simply rolled them into a ball, smoshed our thumb inside, and then shaped them.  I used a pair of scissors to cut the petals.

It was also super easy to mix two colors to get another color.  If we didn't fully mix the colors, we got a marbled effect (like the flower.)  If we fully mixed colors, we got lovely secondary colors (like the purple.)

We also easily mixed it some super fine glitter to make it sparkly.  To make the starry night bowl, I added some extra star glitter on top.  (I got mine from Michaels, but Amazon also has star glitter too!)


ring bowls made for Mother's day using air dry clay


Once we finished with our bowls, we placed them on a plastic tray to dry.  I covered them loosely with plastic bags overnight because I was worried they would crack.  (My friend Jeannette from Tiny Rotten Peanuts said that clay tends to cray if it dries too quickly.  We live in a really dry climate so I didn't want to take any chances.)

After the first day of waiting, I took the bags off and let them dry naturally.  They were dry after 2 days.

DIY model magic air dry clay ring bowls made as gift- great kids craft


Aren't they neat?  I know they look really solid, but these Model Magic bowls are super light.  Strange, huh?

kids craft for mother's day gift- air dry starry night ring bowls


I hope you have fun trying out this activity with your kids!  And if you're looking for other super easy Mother's Day Gift ideas, check out the links below!



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Happy making, friends!