Art Bead Scene 6th Annual Ornament Blog Hop

When I first read about this year’s version of the Art Bead Scene Ornament Blog Hop I was so excited. I’ve been wanting to try my hand at making ornaments for a while now.

My original plan was to use polymer clay to make something new and different to my usual direction. Not only were the polymer gods not in a mood to participate but November and December turned out to be my busiest yet. After scrapping several batches of polymer clay I had to put the idea aside and put my focus to my final shows of the year.

This week I decided to try again. Since I am on vacation from my bill paying job I had more time to play, including spending lots of time on Pinterest. I found many posts about an air dry clay made of corn starch, baking soda and water. I used the recipe from this pin and was letting it air dry.  It was taking too long to dry and today I ended up following the baking instructions from this post.

I had visions of pretty painted ornaments with impressed images highlighted by paint. Things didn’t turn out the way I anticipated, though they do look better in person than in the photo below.

I decided I didn’t like the use of the different coloured paint and went for silver and gold in the next batch, using a dry brush technique. I went a little heavy with the silver paint, mainly because it was so light and hard to see.

I was happier with the way this batch turned out but decided to try one last variation. Skipping the impressions I went to plain ornament shapes and stamped different images on them. These turned out to be my favourites.

I did try a dry brush on the two top ornaments but quickly decided I didn’t care for it and left the rest white. You can really see how white the “clay” mix is. The bottom left ornament had to be painted over and redone because I originally stamped the bird upside down. He did look quite strange that way.

First I need to buy narrow ribbon to hang them with then all of these ornaments will be gifts for some young friends. I hope they forgive my mistakes and enjoy them for what they are.

Please visit the blog reveal to see what everyone else made

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day