The usual prerequisites I try to meet on these; fast, easy and inexpensive, but without looking like it! LOL
This year, I was inspired by some essential oil diffuser pendants I'd seen on Pinterest. The premise is basic. Make an object from a clay that will absorb the oil, then slowly release the scent over time. After a few days, more oil can be added. This is one of those crafts that can be kept simple, or more elaborate, with only a few minor changes.
Materials needed:
Terra Cotta air dry clay
cookie cutters
stamps or textural items.
essential oil
Tools:
rolling pin
skewer or straw
vinyl sheet
craft knife
craft brush
course and fine grit sand paper
The main thing, of course, is the air dry clay. After doing a bit of research, I chose to use terra cotta clay, as it seems to have some of the best properties to act as a diffuser.
This is one of those areas where you get what you paid for! I tested out a dollar store brand of air dry clay someone had donated to our church's Bible school art supplies, and it was just horrid stuff. You defininely don't want to skimp on quality here! Take the time to knead the clay before starting, and keep some water and a damp cloth handy.
For the cookie cutters, you can go with seasonal shapes, but I chose to go with basic shapes. As long as the cutter leaves a surface large enough to fit your stamps, if that's what you want to use.
For decorating the surface, I chose seasonal stamps, however you can use anything that will give a texture to the surface. For example, a crocheted doily, leaves, sprigs, or even some of those textured rollers you can get in the cake decorating supplies.
Smooth the surface with a damp cloth or paper towel, if you wish.
If you wish to use an all-over texture for your ornaments, this would be the time to add them. Place your leaves, twigs, doilies, or whatever you are using on your clay and gently press.
The clay is rolled out fairly thick because the shapes I chose are quite large; the largest of the sets I bought.
Choose your shapes and start cutting out the clay.
If you've used an all-over texture on your clay, position your cutters selectively to get the texture where you want it on the shape. Otherwise, just fit in as many as you can.
Remove the excess clay and put it into an air tight container or cover with a damp cloth to keep it from drying out while you work.
Choose your stamps to add texture, if you haven't already.
I wanted my squares to be oriented as diamonds, so I placed the stamps at a 45 degree angle.
Take care when pressing the stamps in to keep them even. You want a nice, deep impression without accidentally including the outline of the rubber stamp.
For the round shape, I tried using a button to add texture. In the end, I was unhappy with it and re-used the clay in my next batch of ornaments.
Because of the larger size of these ornaments, I used a straw to cut out holes for the hangers. The skewer still came in handy to push the little plugs of clay out of the straw.
For smaller ornaments or pendants, I'd use the skewer or even a large needle for a smaller hole.
This next part was a first for me. I had aquired a food dehydrator recently, and decided to try it out to dry the ornaments.
This is where working on a piece of vinyl really helps out. It makes it SO much easier to move the pieces onto the drying racks. There was still a bit of flopping and shape distortion. If that is an issue, you may wish to leave your shapes to dry for a few minutes before moving them.
On to the next batch; this time I used completely different stamps. They were a bit more difficult to press evenly into the surface compared to the wooden stamps, but I like the designs better.
One of them didn't work out at all and the clay got re-used later.
I used an Xacto knife to cut the shapes out, completely forgetting to leave a space for the hanger hole.
I decided to keep them, anyhow.
In the next batch, I remembered to space them so I could cut out an area for the hanger hole.
A definite bonus to using the dehydrator is the ability to use layers. Talk about saving space! The trays are easy to move around as needed. I was really looking forward to seeing how well this worked.
I also experimented a bit with other shapes, and this is one I ended up keeping. I used the largest flower shape for the outside, then the smallest for the inside. I then found a button with a texture I liked and used a skewer through the shank to apply even pressure into the clay.
Here are all of the finished shapes after an hour or two in the dehydrator.
The little heart was something I made using clay that was rolled out thinner, and I used a heart shaped stamp with an all-over texture to it, then cut the heart shape out manually.
The dehydrator fan was noisy, but not too bad.
The shapes are not completely dried through, but I decided to turn off the dehydrator at this point.
While not as much of an issue with the smaller pieces, the larger pieces started to curl a bit from drying too quickly. You can also see that the damp clay had started to sink into the mesh of the drying racks.
I've noticed that there are different meshes available for different types of foods to dry, including no mesh at all for fruit leathers. I think this worked out well enough that I might invest in different drying surfaces for future use.
Here are all the shapes removed from the dehydrator and left to finish drying on a paper towel.
In the future, I think I would sitll use the dehydrator, but leaving it on for a shorter time. At least if I'm making something that's thinner, like the little heart, or larger, like the squares and flower. The rectangles had almost no warping at all.
After letting them all dry overnight, it was time for the finishing touches.
For sanding, I find I like these sponges. They are available in a variety of grits, including the 60 and 220 I have here. I really ought to have a medium grit, too, but I just don't happen to right now.
Here's a closer look at the fully dried shapes. You can really see how much the larger pieces have warped from drying too quickly, as well as how rough the edges are.
This is after using the course grit sanding pad, and part of it has been done with fine grit.
I used course grit only to do the backs of the ornaments, while the fronts got a final touch up with fine grit. I did want to keep a bit of the roughness, so I didn't do too much sanding Mostly, it was to get rid of the sharper edges.
Clay dust will build up in the grit. Most of it can be knocked out fairly well, but I found using a stiff bristled brush also helped clean the dust out. When I was done, I washed the dust out with plain water.
Working over paper towel made clean up much easier!
Here, all of the shapes have been sanded.
For the hangers, I just used some quarter inch satin ribbon I happened to have.
For these, I chose to stop here and not ad any more to the decorations. Some of the things I considered was using fancier ribbons, hot gluing seasonal foliage to the tops, at the base of the ribbon, or adding something to frame the edges. I also considered adding colour. In the end, I decided to just keep it simple for these and experiment with the others.
Here is one experiment; adding glow in the dark glitter glue around the edges of the rectangles without hanging holes.
With the heart, I experimented with adding colour using metallic markers. I was quite pleased with how well teh colour stood out.
I then added the essential oil to the shapes; I chose Rose for the scent this time.
Because of how large the pieces are, rather than putting on a drop or two and leaving it, I used the stiff bristled brush to spread the oil across the surfaces.
I then reminded myself that, if I'm going to use a brush like that, I really ought to wait until the glitter glue dried, first.
Thankfully, I was able to fix the mess. LOL
Here they all are, fully dry.
And yes, they work quite well as diffusers. My office smelled like roses for days!
Also, that glow in the dark glitter glue works really, really well.
Our tree now has quite a lot of scented ornaments. The cinnamon and applesauce dough ornaments have held their scent for many years, and the more recent ornaments with spices decorating them have also maintained their scent quite well. Even the sachets with drops of essential oil in the stuffing still let off a faint scent. Now, we have roses, as well.
And here is how some of our new ornaments look on the tree!
Now that I've made these as ornaments, I am looking to make oil diffusers as pendents. I am also looking into trying a white home made clay recipe.
If I'm happy with how they turn out, expect to see some in my etsy shop!
