Initial Keychains with Air Dry Clay

I need some small personalized gifts for a few people, and decided that some simple keychains would be perfect. Rather than a split ring, I chose this style of finding because it is easy to attach to a purse strap or bag handle. Keychains aren't just for keys, they can also identify your bag!

Take a small piece of your air-dry clay, and roll it out flat. I used an apple corer to cut my circles. It was the perfect size, and I already had it. Lots of little nubs to sand off after drying though.

See the bits that had to be sanded?

Then a quick hole, made with a toothpick.

Next, I used scrapbooking stamps directly on the soft clay. Most I did with no ink, for one I tried ink.

Then I let them dry for a day or two. After they were dry, I got rid of those nubs with an emery board. Then I painted the fronts and backs—some with acrylics, others with simple kids' watercolors. After that dried, I used a glue pen in the stamped letters, and then added glitter.

When everything was dry and extra glitter brushed off with a big soft paintbrush, I added 3 coats of acrylic coating, 10 minutes apart.

9mm jump rings connect the keychain finding to the clay pieces.

Air Dry Clay Bowl

The December 2013 Whimseybox came with a pack of air-dry clay, a small doily (to create texture), a large circle cookie cutter, an orange stick, and a small emery board.

The suggested project was a small bowl, and I decided to go for it, since I have never used this stuff before. It also only takes up about 1/3 of the pack of clay, so there are a lot more possibilities.

I found the clay a little difficult to warm up with my hands, as it was not a small piece—and then hard to roll out. I used my kitchen rolling pin with wax paper over the clay. Cutting was easy; I chose a stamp and used a silver ink pad. I am not thrilled with the letters—the size was right, but the font has a bit too much detail for this kind of project. Live and learn!

The drying—oh the drying! The project directions say to let it dry overnight. Mine took 3 days to fully dry. And the thickness matches what is in the project direction photos.

I also let it dry while perched on a coffee mug, to get the bowl shape. Unfortunately, over 2 days of sitting on the cup, you can see where the rim of the cup was on my bowl! Ah well, maybe I should have given it a plate shape when I realized this was happening.

I am considering spraying this with acrylic sealer, but have not just yet. I have another few small things that I made at the same time (I need to add some paint and whatnot), and I will try sealing those first.

Also—the smell of this clay. I kind of liked it (in a weird way), my husband hated it. One of the boys kept asking what that "weird smell" is. As in "that weird smell isn't dinner is it?"

No.

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