I love all of the beautiful white or pastel colored, hand crafted ceramics I’ve seen all over the place. But I don’t love the price tags, on any of them. So I decided to figure out how to make some of my own. This bud vase was a super easy diy, and I am in love with the results.
It’s the perfect way to display a couple of little blooms this spring, to freshen up a small space. Also, its totally customizable which I love. You can make it look as pretty and neat, or as handcrafted as you want. You can also paint on top of it, use a glaze, or gold-leafing, seriously, the possibilities are endless.
Heres what you need to get started:
–Polymer clay
-pencil
-wax paper
-baking sheet/oven
Step-by-step:
- Preheat oven to the temperature it says to set it on the back of your package of clay. (mine was 275 degrees)
- Wash your hands well to make sure you don’t get the clay dirty.
- Take desired amount of clay (I used about 1/5 of the polymer clay package), and condition it between your fingers and on a sheet of wax paper. Basically meaning smush it and knead it a bunch, just to get it to the point wear its super flexible and pliable. (this took me about 10-15 mins, make sure you’re really thorough about this to avoid getting any cracks while baking!)
- Roll clay into a ball on wax paper.
- Roll the ball of clay into more of a cylinder shape of clay.
- From here, with your hands, form the cylinder into whatever you would it to look like as a bud vase. For me, I tapered it in on the top to make the top of the vase, and then tapered it the smallest bit on the bottom, just to create a nice organic shape. (my vase ended up being about 4 inches tall, and 2 1/2 inches wide, just for reference)
- Use a pen to make an indentation on the top for the water and bud to go into. I made mine about 2 inches deep.
- Bake in the oven for the amount of time listed on your package of clay (every brand of clay is different, but mine was 15 min, for every 1/4 inch of thickness; so I baked mine for just under 90 mins, because mine was 1 1/2 inches wide at its thickest point). Watch it closely to make sure you don’t overbake it and get cracks.
- Put in a tiny bit of water, and a bud or two. Enjoy!
Have you ever made anything with oven-bake ceramic? I’ve tried a couple other little things; one of my favorites (other than this vase) is some ring cones I made back in December. I love being able to work with my hands and mold something, its so therapeutic to me.