Introduction: Clay Flower
How to make a clay flower. Great on headbands, hair clips or just on its own!
Step 1: Making the Petals
Materials you will use:
Clay (for this, I would recommend Sculpy clay as it is colorful and easy to use; this can be bought at any crafts store and most art stores, such as Blick)
Glaze (this is optional)
Oven (for baking the clay)
The petals can be made out of any color. I personally like the swirls in the clay which is created by mixing two or more colors together. To make the purple color that I used, I mixed various amounts of blue, red and white till I got a color that I liked. I would recommend making sure that you have enough clay to make all of the petals because it is usually difficult to remake the same color. If you have a ball of clay that is roughly the size of the flower you want to make that will be enough.
Once you have a color that you want, pinch off a small amount of clay to make the first petal. One of the ways to make a petal is to first roll up the clay into a ball. Next flatten the ball of clay between your fingers. Take the flattened ball of clay and pinch one end to form a raindrop shape. After forming this shape, the petal may need to be flattened a little bit more. This is the shape of your petals.
You can also pinch the ball of clay to form the raindrop shape before flattening out the ball.
I would recommend making petals of a variety of sizes so that the smaller ones can go in the middle.
Clay (for this, I would recommend Sculpy clay as it is colorful and easy to use; this can be bought at any crafts store and most art stores, such as Blick)
Glaze (this is optional)
Oven (for baking the clay)
The petals can be made out of any color. I personally like the swirls in the clay which is created by mixing two or more colors together. To make the purple color that I used, I mixed various amounts of blue, red and white till I got a color that I liked. I would recommend making sure that you have enough clay to make all of the petals because it is usually difficult to remake the same color. If you have a ball of clay that is roughly the size of the flower you want to make that will be enough.
Once you have a color that you want, pinch off a small amount of clay to make the first petal. One of the ways to make a petal is to first roll up the clay into a ball. Next flatten the ball of clay between your fingers. Take the flattened ball of clay and pinch one end to form a raindrop shape. After forming this shape, the petal may need to be flattened a little bit more. This is the shape of your petals.
You can also pinch the ball of clay to form the raindrop shape before flattening out the ball.
I would recommend making petals of a variety of sizes so that the smaller ones can go in the middle.
Step 2: Putting Them Together
Now that you have your petals, start by taking the smallest one, which will be the center of the flower, and pushing the sides of the raindrop toward the center. Next wrap the second smallest petal around the first so that the two petals are facing each other. Wrap the third smallest around the first two petals, so that the petal fills in the space between the other two.
Continue pinching on new petals in the space between the old petals until the flower is the size that you want it to be. Keep in mind that you may need to make more petals of different sizes to fit in the gaps.
Once the flower is finished, I usually slightly curl down the tips of the petals.
Continue pinching on new petals in the space between the old petals until the flower is the size that you want it to be. Keep in mind that you may need to make more petals of different sizes to fit in the gaps.
Once the flower is finished, I usually slightly curl down the tips of the petals.
Step 3: Making the Leaf
To make the leaf, I mixed green and white to give it the same swirl effect as the petals. I took the ball of mixed clay and created the V shaped cutout by pinching and flattening the clay. I flattened the clay till it was about 1/16 of an inch thick.
Next press the leaf onto the flower rather than the flower onto the leaf because the flower is more fragile and susceptible to being squished. The easiest way to do this is by holding the base of the outside petals and and pushing the leaf onto the center of the flower.
Next press the leaf onto the flower rather than the flower onto the leaf because the flower is more fragile and susceptible to being squished. The easiest way to do this is by holding the base of the outside petals and and pushing the leaf onto the center of the flower.
Step 4: Finished
Now that you are done with the flower you can bake it!
For baking instructions, see the back of the box that the clay came in. In general though, I use the instructions pictured here. For the flower, I would put it in for about 10 minutes and then check on it. After taking it out of the oven, once it has cool enough to tough, I feel how soft the clay is. If it gives a lot when you push lightly on it, I would recommend putting it back in the oven for another 3 minutes. The reason I check on it is because the leaf part is so thin and will therefor cook fairly quickly. It is, however, unlikely that you will over cook the clay.
Once it is done baking you can put glaze on it which will give the clay a shiny look. If you choose to do this, apply the glaze with a paint brush so that it covers all of the parts that you want to be shiny.
And now you are done!
For baking instructions, see the back of the box that the clay came in. In general though, I use the instructions pictured here. For the flower, I would put it in for about 10 minutes and then check on it. After taking it out of the oven, once it has cool enough to tough, I feel how soft the clay is. If it gives a lot when you push lightly on it, I would recommend putting it back in the oven for another 3 minutes. The reason I check on it is because the leaf part is so thin and will therefor cook fairly quickly. It is, however, unlikely that you will over cook the clay.
Once it is done baking you can put glaze on it which will give the clay a shiny look. If you choose to do this, apply the glaze with a paint brush so that it covers all of the parts that you want to be shiny.
And now you are done!
Participated in the
The Contest Purple
