Monstera Leaf Decorative Tray Made From Air-Dry Clay

Supplies
Air-dry clay
Rolling pin
Utility knife
Paper
Pen/pencil
Paints
Paint brush

Tutorial 
This tutorial is about a decorative tray made from air-dry clay using slab technique. Slab technique can be used to create strong functional or decorative forms of pottery from flexible sheets of clay, called slabs.

Here I am making a monstera leaf tray and you need a sketch of the leaf in a paper. You can either download a leaf drawing or draw one by yourself. Cut out the shape using scissors.

Prepare your workplace by layering a few old news papers on a flat surface (counter top/table etc.) so that once you are done, you can simply throw the newspapers without much cleanup.

Place a sheet of the foil/parchment paper over the newspapers. Take a big lump of clay (around 1.8 Kg / 4.1 pound) and using a rolling pin, hand roll it into a flat sheet/ slab, of at least 1 cm thickness (it will collapse if it is too thin). The slab should be a bit larger than the monstera leaf you have drawn.

Get the cut-out leaf sketch and place it over the slab of clay. Trace around it lightly using something sharp. A wooden skewer/pencil/ tooth pick etc. will do the job. After the shape has been traced onto the clay, cut the clay along the traced pattern using a knife.

Remove the excess clay that just cut off. Now make the leaf details such as midrib, stem, and vein on the clay. You can inscribe this on the clay by making small depressions using wooden skewer/pencil/ tooth pick etc.

The monstera leaf tray is almost ready, just one more step before I let my work dry. I want to make the tray more appealing by bending the edges of the leaf a bit upward. For that,  transfer the leaf along with the underlying foil/paper into a  8" wide cooking pan/bowl so that the bottom lies flat while the edges will curve a bit according to the shape of the pan. Allow it dry completely.

Once it is dried, apply two coats of acrylic paint (gloss finish). Dry the paint according to the paint package/tube/bottle instructions. For decorative purpose, a few lady bugs were also made using clay and painted. Glue the lady bugs on the leaf.

(As the leaf is very prone to cracking/breaking, handle it very carefully. If it broke, use an industrial strength adhesive to join the broken pieces)

Terracotta Jewellery

Supplies:
Air-dry clay-Terracotta
Needle tool to make holes in beads (a tooth pick, or a skewer can be used instead)
Parchment paper/ aluminum foil
Paints (Acrylic/fabric paints)
Paint brushes
Thread and a hook
Utility knife
Rolling pin
Water

Tutorial:
Plan the style, length, shape, number, and size of the beads that are required to make the necklace. For this necklace, I used spherical and tapered beads and a pendant. If you want to make beads of similar size, use a weighing scale to get exact weight of the clay before rolling into beads. Or, you can eyeball the amounts.

Cut a sheet of parchment paper/ foil  and lay it over a flat surface. Take out a lemon-size clay and place it over the foil (seal the rest of the clay to prevent it from drying). Squeeze the clay with your hands to make a thick cylinder. Then, place the cylinder on parchment paper/foil and roll it using your palm into a long coil of around 1 cm-1.5 cm diameter. Make sure the diameter of the coil is uniform. Then cut into several small pieces. Each of these pieces are going to be beads. To make beads of equal size, be sure to cut into similar-length pieces from the long coil (or weigh the pieces)

To make spherical beads: Take a small piece that cut from the long coil in your hand and roll into a small sphere. Using needle tool or tooth pick, poke holes in the spherical bead.

To make tapered beads: Decide the length of the tapered bead and cut similar-length piece from the long coil. Using your index finger and thumb make the edges a bit curvy. Then, poke holes.

To make pendant: Take out a lemon-size clay and roll it flat (thickness should be around 1-1.5 cm) using a rolling pin. Then cut the required shape from it. Poke hole and make designs on the surface using stamps or simply by using a kitchen fork/skewer/tooth pick.

Once you made all the beads and pendant that are required to make the necklace, allow them to dry according to the package instructions. Make sure to dry at least a day before doing any painting on it. I used metallic shades of fabric paints. For painting a bead, strung it on a skewer/tooth pick/ needle tool, then apply paint. It is very easy to paint in this way than holding the beads with your fingers. Apply two coats of paint and once the paint has dried, apply spray glaze. Next, strung the beads and pendant using a thread and fix a hook.

Tips: If you feel the clay is getting dry while you working with it, you can simply wet your finger in water then work with clay.