After seeing some of the lovely ceramic fish, tiles and wall art ceramic houses on a recent trip to Portugal I was really inspired to try some for myself. But not having access to a kiln and actually pottery making equipment, I decided to try the next best thing, air dried clay from DAS.
The clay itself varies in price from between 5 to 7 euros for 1Kg, and I only used a fifth of the packet to make all of the pieces below.
You will need:
- Download and printout the fairy house pattern template. Cut out each of the individual fairy houses, with a paper scissors.
- Some clay sculpting tools. I purchased the ones shown in the image at the same time as the clay for €3.00.
- An old chopping board, or surface to roll out the clay on.
- A rolling pin, a glass bottle or jar will also do.
- Gouache Tempera paint
- Brushes
- Clear nail polish
How to Make:
- Take out one fifth of the clay and reseal the bag.
- Working the clay with your hands to make it pliable and soft before rolling out into a flat surface roughly 1/2 cm in thickness.
- Taking your patter template lay down on the clay and cut out with tools.
- Remove the clay and smooth off the edges, you may need a small amount of water to get the edges very smooth.
- Lay the pattern back onto of the cut out clay and transfer the makings by lightly tracing them over the pattern onto the clay.
- I used the base of a biro to make the toad stool house spots more defined.
- Repeat this for the following two houses.
- Once the houses were all complete I made a small hole near the top of each one, just in case I wanted to hang the pieces from a mobile.
- I also found I had some clay last over so I rolled two balls and places a hols right the way through and I freehand drew three hearts, again making a hole near the top.
- Leave aside for between 24 to 48 hours to completely dry.
- Once dry I painted them with Gouache Tempera paint and left them to dry.
- Finally I gave each piece a coating of clear nail polish to add a little extra toughness and shine.
Now I just have to decide how I want to use them, but for the moment I think I am going to place small ribbon through the tops and have them as decorations for our Christmas tree.
The cute little fairy houses can also be used as colouring sheets, print out on A4 paper.
(Toadstool House)
(Yellow house with the blue roof)
(Yellow house with the green roof)
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