One for the kids

In my previous post, I mentioned that December is a month of many celebrations for us, one of these is my daughter's birthday. As the actual day is during the school holidays, we decided to have a little birthday bash at school during snack time.

It was fun to plan and prepare little 'lunch boxes' full of yummy treats for the kids...and even more fun to make these...

Cupcake dressing?

At first glance they may look like cupcakes, but they're actually made of coloured paper clay...and this is how they were made.

Using the palms of your hand, roll some clay into a ball. (Here I mixed red and white coloured clay).

Roll some paper clay into a ball

Flatten the ball with a smooth, flat object (I used my Mum's pyrex cover).

Flatten the clay evenly

Use a cookie cutter for consistent sizes and shapes.

Use a cookie cutter

Peel away the excess

A perfect circle

The best thing about coloured paper clay is the ability to mix the colours together. If you blend the two colours well, you will end up with a different shade altogether. You can also mix the colours in such a way that you end up with swirls...like so.

Swirls of yellow on blue

Make a hole near the top big enough to slip a ribbon through. This can be done with a clean drinking straw.

Make a hole using drinking straw

A nice clean hole for slipping ribbons through

Roll some coloured clay to form alphabets and press it into the base.

Glue on some flat back jewel embellishments. I chose dragonflies, butterflies, flowers, leaves, starfishes and teddy bears for this project.

Flat back star fish jewels for Ines

Flat back teddy bear and dragonfly for Brandon

Leave the clay to harden overnight. Then apply some clear varnish, and leave it to dry again.

Flat back flower jewels

Flat back flower butterflies

Flat back flower starfish and flower (and some clay waves)

And when the varnish is dry....slip on some lovely coloured grosgrain ribbons, tie a knot...and you have homemade giveaways that make great Christmas decorations, bedroom door signs and baggage name tags. Alternatively, brooch pins can be attached to the back of the clay before it hardens and you'll have a lovely name badge. Either way, the little ones loved their customized name tag/decorations...and so did the parents ;)

(Note: This post is taken from our Facebook page notes written in December 2010)