Festive crafting - lace bowls

So this Christmas I've set myself the challenge of home-making every single gift for every single person. I currently only work part time, so decided to utilise the extra time to draw on my creative skills (and, admittedly, save myself some money). My gift recipients range from immediate family to distant extended step-grandparents, so I needed to come up with some ideas that could function both as personal gifts and token gestures. After browsing the internet for inspiration for several weeks, I decided that my first project would be clay based, and I settled on the idea of clay trinket bowls (pictured above). I haven't worked with clay since my Year 9 Art GCSE, and at first I was worried that the materials might be pricey and that I'd have to mess around with ovens and whatnot. However, a quick internet search revealed my secret weapon- white air-drying clay. I picked up a 2.5 kg tub of the stuff at Early Learning Centre for £5, which was so much cheaper than I expected! Using ordinary kitchen crockery, I've moulded bowls in a selection of sizes and pressed them with a handmade (not by me) crochet doily to give a pretty lace effect. After much searching and a minor heartbreak at the price of real lace doilies, I decided to head over to etsy.com where I found my fabulous crochet doily from Happilyevercrafts! This turned out to be a stroke of genius, as the thicker material of the crochet means that I get a really lovely deep imprint in my clay. I toyed with the idea of perhaps painting the lace areas once the clay was dry or even attempting to apply paint to the doily to colour the clay whilst I was moulding it, but for my first set, I left the lace plain and was really happy with how it came out. Once dry, the bright white of the clay and dainty lace effect has a lovely shabby chic effect that I felt was perfectly versatile for such a wide range of gift recipients. Once dry, I used a rough sandpaper to even out the edges of the bowls before using a gold craft paint to  'gild' the edges. The finished effect does nothing to hide the fact that the bowls are homemade- however, I really like that and love the fact that each dish is unique!

These two dishes are the very first ones that I made, and thankfully the process is becoming a little smoother and more refined as I get the hang of the fiddly bits! I've found it quite difficult to mould the clay in a way that leaves the bowl level, and several are a little wonky and off balance- however, this all adds to the homemade charm (I think...)!

I'm working on several other ideas for Christmas gifts that I am yet to photograph, but I'll try and get them uploaded over the next few days!