CHRISTMAS DIY: clay ornaments

Last week I got my Christmas craft on and made these little hanging ornaments to give out instead of Christmas cards this year. I got the idea from the DIY mecca that is A Beautiful Mess and used a couple of their designs, along with my own.

I used DAS air drying clay, though I wished I had Fimo as all the DIYs I've seen using it give a smoother, glossier finish.

I rolled the clay out in small batches using a rolling pin and then cut them out using a cookie cutter or, for the tiny discs, a metal tea light worked perfectly. Then I used a chopstick to make the ribbon hole and left them out to dry for about 24 hours. I got about 30 small discs, 10 large ones and a few other shapes out of 500g of clay, so it's nice to do a big batch if you have the time!

I tried out a couple of different markers, but the slightly rough finish shredded the soft tips of my fine sharpie pens. In the end, I found that a Pilot rollerball pen did the job nicely. Don't you think the gold glitter and neon velvet ribbons go so well together? They were cheap and cheerful at £1 a roll from Tiger. All in all I spent about £4 and have made decorations for lots of friends and family - I handed out the first batch at the weekend and I think they went down quite well! I think they would make sweet gift tags for presents and I also gave some blank ones to the kids I babysit for them to decorate themselves.