Simple to Make Pressed Clay Christmas Decorations

Home Decorating/Craft:

I have been wanting to make these decorations for a while now.

These decorations are really simple to make, you could make them with your kids for some great holiday craft too. Although the list of things you need looks long, you will find you have pretty much everything already, except the clay and maybe the varnish.

What you need:

•  Cookie cutters (whatever shape you want – doesn’t have to be a Christmas shape – round cutters or fluted cutters both look great.
• White air-dry clay (mine was approx. $8 for 500g from Spotlight)
• Clear varnish (I used Gloss Lustre Modge Podge)
• Paint brush or sponge 
• Rubber stamps
• Drinking straw
• Rolling pin
• Ribbon or twine to hang the decorations
• Baking tray or chopping board
• Baking paper

I made a total of 43 decorations of various sizes out of the 500g of clay I bought, so they really are a cheap way to make great decorations for your tree this year.

1. To make these I cut off about 2 inch wedge of the clay and rolled it out to a thickness of about 3mm onto a chopping board with a layer of baking paper underneath.

2. Then use your cookie cutter shapes to cut out your shapes. Just keep rerolling the clay to use up all the clay, like you would when making cookies.

3. This is the fun part, use your rubber stamps to make impressions in the clay. I used a peacock stamp for mine and little individual letters to write Christmas words on the decorations. But you could use anything you like, maybe a fork or some pressed glass you have, anything that will leave an imprint in the clay.

4. Once you are happy with the printing you need to set aside the clay decorations to dry completely. Best to leave them for a couple days in a nice dry place (I put mine on a baking tray and left them on the deck in the sun for a couple hours – it's summer here so it doesn’t take long!)

5. To give your decorations a lovely glimmer perfect for the Christmas tree I used 2 coats of Modge Podge Gloss Lustre (I bought this at Spotlight for about $10 – but it will last forever!). Make sure you let each layer properly dry in between. You could also add glitter or a colour at this stage instead if you wanted something brighter – I think the kids would really love that!

6. Finally you can thread through your ribbon or twine (I bought mine at Biome - $7.95 for 100m).

I have some snowflake decorations drying at the moment too – can't wait to finish those – they are so pretty.

I also made some smaller clay cut outs too that I’m going to hang on a branch in my living room – just need to find the branch first!

Happy Christmas Crafting

Caity x