New Feature! Craft Section

Categories:Crafts
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madnad

So, since the new kitchen is still not in yet (end of May;) ), so I am keeping my creative juices flowing with other crafts. It occurred to me that other people that enjoy the creative side of cooking and baking, may also dabble in other creative endeavours such as crafts. I thought it would be nice to share these too to inspire you all to get creative. Don’t worry though, I will still largely be covering food and recipes.

I have decided to include as the first of these new posts, the last project I worked on. I recently discovered the fun that can be gained playing with clay. I made my sister a fairy house tea light from an old jar for Christmas. Sadly, I don’t have a step-by-step of this, but I promise if I do it again, I will note this.

I did it in 3 parts.

First part was the roof. I created the rough form I wanted out of scrunched up foil, then hot-glued this to the jar lid. I covered it in a thin layer of clay (I have been using an air-dry variety, but the oven bake stuff would work just as well). I formed little brick/stone shapes, and created a chimney. I would be using a battery operated tea light inside, but if you wanted to use lit flames, you should punch a hole in the lid of the jar, and ensure a hole goes all the way out of the chimney or your tea light will keep going out. Personally, for safety reasons, I would advise sticking to battery operated lights, and make the chimney purely decorative. I roughed up the chimney stones with an old tooth brush.

I rolled out a thin layer of clay and cut into rough squares to form the roof tiles, which I stuff on with a dab of water one at a time. Once I was happy with the roof, I left it perched on the jar to dry for 24 hours.

The second stage was the house itself. I first took some yellow cellophane (sweet wrappers are ideal for this), and hot glued around the edge of the of them to the outside of the jar where I was going to place the windows. I also dappled the exterior of the jar with more hot glue to form a slightly rough surface to aid adhesion of the clay. I covered the entire outside of the jar, from just below the thread of the lid to the base of the sides. Looking inside, I was able to gauge roughly where the cellophane was, so was able to mark where the windows went. You could use a cutter, or just use a sharp knife, and cut out a circle.

I added other details such as the door, handle, stones around the doors and windows, window panes and ledges etc. I also detailed in a few bricks. You could do this all the way around if you want, but I wanted it to look like a rendered house where some of the render had dropped off. Once happy, I allowed this to dry for 24 hours.

The final build stage was the base. I created a slight mound with scrunched up foil, and pressed the house into the top to mark where it was going. I hot glued the jar to the base. I then covered the foil in clay, and stippled a little with an old tooth brush. I added some steps, then left it all to dry.

I then went back to the roof, and painted it. Then I painted the house and the base and left everything to one side to dry completely.

I got some dried moss and glued this to the banks of the mound the house was sat on to look like grass. Last thing I did was place the base on some green card, and drew around it. I cut out the shape and hot glued to the bottom to create a non-scratch surface.

Lastly, I placed in a tea light, put on the lid, and enjoyed the effect. My sister loved it, so much so, she is thinking of creating one herself. The beauty of this type of project is you can make your little house out of any shaped jar, in any style and colours – you can completely customise it to what you want.

FairyLight Tea House

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