But today I thought of making a trinket dish for this holiday season which can be used as a gift to make your loved ones feel special. 🎁

This is not only a Christmas trinket dish, it is a snowman trinket dish ☃️ which is unique and even beautiful to use as a home or desk decor item. 🏠

You can place this on your Christmas dinner table 🎄 and brag to everyone about the story about how you made this. Trust me it will be quite a story!

Don’t worry about complex or expert steps here. I’m also a beginner clay artist like you who likes to make awesome things with minimal effort.

I’ll tell you every step, tips and techniques I used to make this beautiful piece with all the mistakes I did along the way so you can avoid them and make one so much better than mine.

Enough chit chat! Let’s dive right in! 🚀

Why air dry clay?

Air dry clay is the most beginner friendly clay type. Yes, that’s a fact. Let me tell you why…

• Air dry clay is easy to shape and bend.
• Super cheap.
• Easy to correct mistakes.
• No kiln or baking needed.
• Dries in the air.

Don’t get confused I’ll explain each in brief.

Read: Air Dry Clay for Beginners: The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide

You can make almost any shape, object or item with air dry clay. You simply have to tap the air dry clay surface with a little bit of water and boom it becomes bendy and super easily and comfy to shape.

This cost effectiveness is super important especially when you’re a beginner. Let me tell you why,

As beginners we like to experiment and have fun with clay. Can’t say anything bad about it because that’s how we learn new tricks and techniques. But as a result of those fun experiments we do  waste a lot of clay and that’s ok because otherwise we never learn new things. Only theory, no practical lessons. 

If the clay is too expensive you can’t have fun and do little, cute experiments with it. That’s where air dry clay comes in. No other can beat its value for the money you pay.

Plus, air dry clay dries in the air and no oven is needed like other types of clay. 

Because of the above reasons I really prefer air dry clay to make a christmas decor like this one we are about to make, especially if you’re a beginner.

For more: The Pros and Cons of Air Dry Clay: A Complete Beginner’s Guide

Materials and tools I used

• Air dry clay (DAS, Mont Marte, Jovi, or any reputed brand you can find is okay) 🧱
• Acrylic rolling pin 
• PVC mat or silicone mat 
• Metal jar lid or steel bowl
• Clay crafting tools 
• Clay cutting tool (X-acto knife or small knife) 
• Cup of water or spray bottle 💧
• Acrylic paints (white and black) 🎨
• Gloss varnish
• Paintbrushes 🖌️
• Drawing pen or pencil ✏️
• Paper towels 
• Optional: Sponge or silicone sculpting tool (or you can use your finger 🖐️)

If you couldn’t find any of the above items, I highly suggest you check your kitchen drawers. You’ll find a handful of items like toothpicks, small knives, cutting boards that can be used as alternatives instead above.

But when you become good at this, please purchase a proper clay tool set which is a huge upgrade even for me.

Video tutorial of making the snowman trinket dish

I have recorded each and every step I followed when making this trinket dish from start to finish. You can watch it along with this tutorial to get a better understanding about how things need to be done for the best result. 🎬

Feel free to watch and make a nice Jack Skellington tray! 📺

Finished watching the video? Let’s have a look at the detailed written step-by-step guide. 📝

Step by step: How I made my christmas snowman trinket dish

Before starting, open all the windows in your working area or shift to a well ventilated space 🪟 because air dry clay contains fine particles that can cause breathing issues like cough.

Step 1: Conditioning and kneading the clay

First of all take a fresh piece of clay and start conditioning it by tapping the surface with a little bit of water.

Fresh air dry clay is a bit stiff and hard to knead. Therefore conditioning is must to make it soft and easy to shape in future steps.

Next knead the clay piece well using pull, push and press techniques with a little bit of water just like when you’re making a pizza dough.

Air dry clay generally contains a lot of moisture and air bubbles inside. 🫧 But the moisture inside are spreaded unevenly across different layers of air dry clay.

As the clay dries the moisture inside will release to the outside world due to the evaporation. ☀️ As a result of evaporation, the clay will start to shrink which is completely normal.

But the clay shrinkage can happen unevenly when the moisture inside spreads randomly at the first place with lots of air pockets inside. 

Uneven shrinkage of air dry clay builds up tension between the layers and your clay will start to crack as it dries due to this tension between the layers. In order to avoid that the shrinkage needs to be even across all the layers, which can only be done by kneading the clay well.

Now you can see kneading not only makes the clay soft but also saves your hours of work by avoiding your beautiful piece from cracking. So, whatever you are about to make, never forget kneading at first.

But makes sure to use only a little bit of water 💧 while kneading because too much water triggers the rapid evaporation of water as the clay dries which can also cause surface cracking.

Step 2: Roll the clay slab

Always use a non stick mat like PVC mat (what I use) or silicone mat to avoid clay from sticking to your surface while rolling.

Use an acrylic rolling pin to avoid clay from sticking to it while rolling.

Rolling clay slab too thick and too thin can also cause issues. Let me tell you how,

Rolling clay slab too thick, I mean above ½ inch can affect the drying time. Too thick clay slabs take more days or sometimes weeks to dry fully and also cause surface cracks because outside layers will dry quickly while inside thick layers of clay will still be damp. This results in uneven shrinkage which leads to surface cracking as the clay dries.

Rolling clay slab too thin, I mean below ¼ inch, cause clay to warp asit dries. You can notice how it will start to curl up from the edges as it dries like a fried potato chip. In order to have a better structural integrity the thickness of your air dry clay slab should be above ¼ inch.

If you’re using a wooden cutting board and wooden rolling pin as the rolling surfaces, place a parchment paper between the clay slab and the cutting board and another parchment paper between the clay slab and the rolling pin like a sandwich. 🥪

Wooden surfaces sucks out moisture from your clay slab quickly and build a high grip between the clay which can cause clay to tear apart when rolling and when you try to lift the clay up after rolling. This is why we place a non stick barrier like parchment paper between the wood and the clay.

During my first trinket tray project, I noticed my clay was sticking to my mat even though it was made with non stick PVC material. Later I found that you need to change the position of your clay slab while rolling to avoid it from sticking to the surface.

While you’re rolling the clay slab, the moisture inside will come out and make a seal like grip between the surface. This high grip can make the clay split and crack as you roll and some will stick so hard to the surface.

After rolling the clay slab to an even thickness, don’t forget to smooth out the surface by dipping your index finger in a cup of water and gliding repeatedly over the clay surface to remove tiny bumps, micro cracks and tiny imperfections on the surface.

Smoothing is must from now onwards after each step for a better and smooth surface, but only with a little bit of water. 

Step 3: Cutting the circular dish base

Now place the metal jar lid or steel bowl on the clay slab upside down and press it down.

Read: How to Cut Perfectly Round Air Dry Clay Bases Using Household Templates

Then cut along the outline of the lid/bowl using the x-acto knife.

When you’re cutting make sure not to drag the knife horizontally across the board. Instead lift the blade continuously as you cut with up and down motion and clean the stuck tiny clay pieces on the blade before you go for the next cut. This way you can achieve sharp, nice and clean cut along the dish with no jagged or splitted edges.

I learned that hard way during my failed pineapple trinket dish project. 🍍

Now we successfully made the dish base. Before we move into making the dish rim, don’t forget to smooth out the dish base surface and along the edge with a little bit of water.

Step 4: Making the dish rim

Now knead another fresh piece of clay and roll it to an even thickness as before about ¼ inch.

Next cut about 1 inch width clay strip using the ruler. Width should be the same along the length.

If one piece of strip is not long enough, cut another strip which also has the same width across the length.

Next cut the edges of the dish rim at an angle which helps to attach the edges without occurring bumps.

Finally smooth out the dish rim surface using a little bit of water as I told earlier. Yes, we’re gonna make a trinket dish with raised rim.

Step 5: Attach dish rim to the dish base

Now it’s time to attach the train rim we made to the dish base. 

You can’t attach two air dry clay pieces just by pressing them together. There is a special method for that which is called the “score and slip method”.

Slip is made by mixing equal amounts of air dry clay pieces and water thoroughly in a small plastic can and letting it sit for hours. It is a creamy looking paste that can be used when attaching air dry clay pieces and used again for future projects as well.

First of all I scored along the edge of the dish base using my clay scoring tool.

Then I scored along the bottom length of the dish rim.

I didn’t have the “slip”. Therefore, I tapped the scored surfaces with a little bit of water. Trust me water works as good as the slip because water is one of the main ingredients of the slip. If you don’t have the slip, use water as I did and it works just fine. Don’t worry.

Next attach the dish rim around the dish base carefully and cut the edges of the dish rim at an angle to attach the two ends smoothly without occurring a bump.

After attaching the dish rim to the dish base, smooth out the surface and around the dish rim to remove any seams and micro cracks.

Step 6: Reinforce the joint by adding a thin clay coil

Notice the sharp 90 degree angle between the dish base and the dish rim. As the clay dries the force towards this sharp joint will increase due to the shrinkage of the clay. 

So we need to make sure the joint won’t lose as the clay dries by adding a thin clay coil seam to it.

Adding a thin clay coil seam reinforces the joint between the dish base and the dish rim by making the joint area more thick and removing the 90 degree sharp angle. This helps to keep the joint strong enough under clay shrinkage and bare more forces.

Make the clay coil as thin as possible because we don’t wanna make it look separate sections as the clay dries. 

Use a little bit of water and smooth along the thin clay coil to get rid of the seam.

Great work! ✨ We made the dish. Now it’s time to make our cute snowman. ☃️

Step 7: Sculpting the 3D snowman

It’s not hard to make a 3d snowman figure. First take a fresh piece of air dry clay and knead it so well.

Next make two balls, one should be bigger, which is the belly of our cute snowman and the other one should be his head.

Next, make a cone shaped hat for him. Carefully make it using your fingers. The hat should be pointed.

Finally take a tiny piece of clay and make a carrot shaped nose. 🥕

Now use the score and slip method to attach the head to the belly and hat and nose to the head.

First make the head and belly attachment areas a bit flat using my fingers and score both surfaces well. Next I scored the bottom of the hat and the top of the head where the hat was gonna attach.

Since I didn’t have slip paste I tapped the scored surfaces with a little bit of water and attached them. The result was so good.

Congratulations my friend! 🎉 We have successfully made the Christmas snowman trinket dish with air dry clay. What a beautiful job.

Step 8: Let it dry

However make sure not to paint or seal the project until it dries fully to avoid getting tacky spots and mushy core.

Let the trinket dish dry in a cool, well ventilated area. Never ever place it outside, under direct sunlight or apply a hair blower which can trigger rapid evaporation of water. Rushing the drying process leads to surface cracks because the outside layer of air dry clay dries significantly faster while the inside is still damp.

You can identify whether it is fully dried by the color of the surface and by touching. Usually wet air dry clay has a grey off white color and it changes to pure white and more bright white color once it is fully dried.

Plus, wet air dry clay feel cold to touch due to the evaporation of the moisture inside.

Check the surface after 2 days. 🗓️ If you see grey patches, let it dry more for another 24 hours.

However, don’t move into the next step until the dish is fully dried. Patience is the key to success, especially when drying. 🧘

Step 9: Paint the dish

Once the trinket dish is fully dried, you can start painting the project. 🖌️ Since my tray is made for christmas I used white, green and black colors. 🎨

Oh I forgot to tell you, always use acrylic paints for your air dry clay projects because they come in vivid colors, dries fast within 2 hours, no need to mix with water for preparation and most importantly makes a water resistant coating over the project.

Apply thin and even coats of acrylic in one direction for a nice and smooth finish.

First of all I painted the dish base and rim with green acrylic color.

Next I painted the 3D snowman we built with white color. The hat was painted with black and the carrot shaped nose was orange. Eyes were marked with black.

Finally I did some snowflake decorations on the tray base with white acrylics. ❄️

I let each coat of acrylic dry for 2 hours before applying another.

After the final coat, let it dry and cure for 2 hours before sealing.

Step 10: Seal the christmas snowman trinket dish

I used gloss varnish for sealing this dish and the snowman or you can either use UV resin, polyurethane varnish, Mod Podge or epoxy resin if you need a glassy finish. All above sealers protect your item from outside moisture and splashes.

Gloss varnish makes a water resistant coating which helps to protect our clay dish long term. Plus, it provides a glossy ceramic like finish.

Apply 2-3 thin and even coats in one direction and seal the tray completely. Let each coat dry for 24 hours before applying another.

After the final coat, let it dry and cure for 24 hours.

Even after sealing the project, never ever try to place it outside. Air dry clay can’t withstand outside due to the harsh weather conditions like rain and winter. They damage the coat and find a way to sneak inside and damage the tray.

Congratulations ladies and gentlemen! 🥳 We have finally successfully made out a beautiful Christmas snowman trinket dish with air dry clay. Now it’s your time to make your next holiday decor!

Final thoughts

I think I have described every step I did, every tip, trick and technique I followed to make my snowman trinket dish. Trust me it looks so beautiful and images can’t justify that. 

Try to make the face of your snowman as cute as possible because my snowman’s face is like he went through a lot. Lol. Just like me.

Place this awesome trinket dish on your Christmas dinner table. 🍽️ I’m sure every guest and family member will appreciate your effort and they might request you to make one for them as well. You can be so proud!

If you found out new techniques or tips while making your dish, don’t forget to leave them in the comments section. 💬 As a community we should help each other.

Also if you faced any troubles while making this, add them in the comments section as well. I’ll try to answer them all asap. Or directly reach out to me through contact@clayandme.com 📧

Be sure to tag @clayandmestudios in your Christmas snowman trinket dish project. I sure love to see them when you do. I’ll see you next time with another awesome project! Cheers! 🤟🏾

DIY Air Dry Clay Christmas Snowman Trinket Dish Tutorial

Warsha

Learn how to make a charming Christmas snowman trinket dish using air dry clay! Follow this step-by-step DIY guide with tips on sculpting, drying, painting, and sealing for a festive holiday craft or handmade gift.

Print Instructions Pin Instructions

Supplies Needed

  

Air dry clay (DAS, Mont Marte, Jovi, or any reputed brand you can find is okay) 🧱

Acrylic rolling pin

PVC mat or silicone mat

Metal jar lid or steel bowl

Clay crafting tools

Clay cutting tool (X-acto knife or small knife)

Cup of water or spray bottle 💧

Acrylic paints (white and black) 🎨

Gloss varnish

Paintbrushes 🖌️

Drawing pen or pencil ✏️

Paper towels

Optional: Sponge or silicone sculpting tool (or you can use your finger 🖐️)

Instructions

 

1. Knead & Condition

• Soften your clay with a splash of water to prevent cracking later on. 🧱

2. Roll the Slab

• Roll out an even slab between ¼ inch and ½ inch thick, rotating often so it won’t stick. 🥖

3. Cut the Base

• Press down a lid or steel bowl and cut out a circle with small up-and-down knife movements. ✂️

4. Attach the Rim

• Cut a 1-inch strip, score the edges, dab with water, and wrap it around your base. ⭕

5. Reinforce the Joint

• Smooth a thin clay coil along the inner seam to keep the rim firmly attached. 🐍

6. Sculpt the Snowman

• Shape a body, head, cone hat, and carrot nose, then attach using score and water/slip. ☃️

7. Dry Patiently

• Let your piece dry completely in a cool, ventilated space for 48–72 hours. ⏳

8. Paint & Decorate

• Add festive colors using acrylic paint and let dry completely. 🎨

9. Seal & Protect

• Apply 2–3 thin coats of gloss varnish for a gorgeous, water-resistant ceramic look! ✨

Video

That’s exactly why I thought of making a christmas centerpiece box with air dry clay and decorate it with cute little ornaments. 🎄 Trust me it is not hard to make as it seems.

I’m also a  beginner clay artist like you who doesn’t like complex and expert steps to make an item like this. I used the simplest and easiest ways possible to make this and I’m gonna tell you every step, tip and trick I followed. So you can follow and even apply your own things to it to make it even more beautiful. ✨

Ok! Enough chatterbox! Let’s start making! Ho Ho Hooooo! 🎅🎁

Why make an air dry clay box for your holiday table?

The reason for using air dry clay to make this centerpiece box for my holiday table is because it is beginner friendly, cheap, easy to bend and no kiln or baking needed like other clay types. 🛠️

Air dry clay dries in the air and is able to shape to anything you want after applying a little bit of water. 💧

Read: Air Dry Clay for Beginners: The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide

Plus, you can make this any size you want without buying centerpieces boxes from the stores. 📦 I have already made several Christmas ornaments with air dry clay like the gingerbread house, elf hat, and candy canes. 🍬 So making a box to contain them which are also handmade pairs well.

Yes, air dry clay tends to crack often. But with the right procedure and easy techniques you can avoid it from happening. So, nothing to worry about! 😊

Read: The Pros and Cons of Air Dry Clay: A Complete Beginner’s Guide

Don’t overthink! Let’s try to start making this beautiful piece with air dry clay. Trust me you won’t go wrong! 👍

Materials and tools you will need

• Air dry clay (DAS, Mont Marte, Jovi or any reputed brand you can find is okay)
• Acrylic rolling pin
• PVC mat or silicone mat (or non-stick surface)
• Clay crafting tools 🛠️
• Clay cutting tool (X-acto knife or small knife) 🔪
• A ruler 📏
• Cup of water or spray bottle 💧
• Acrylic paints 🎨
• Gloss varnish ✨
• Paintbrushes 🖌️
• Paper towels 🧻
• Optional: Sponge or silicone sculpting tool (or you can use your finger) 🧽

If you couldn’t find any of the above tools, open each drawer in your kitchen please. You’ll find a handful of items that can replace above clay crafting tools. Especially a knife to replace the X-acto knife. 🍴

Air dry clay projects need to be budget friendly. Use toothpicks, small knives and cutting boards if you don’t have any of the above as suitable. 💡

Video tutorial: How I made the air dry clay centerpiece box

I have recorded everything I did in this project and uploaded it here. So you can watch it alongside this written tutorial to get a better understanding about how steps, tips and trucks need to be done to get a better result. 🎥

Feel free to watch and make a beautiful Christmas centerpiece box! 📺

Finished watching the video? Let’s have a look at the detailed written step-by-step guide. 📝

Step-by-step: How I made the air dry clay Christmas centerpiece box

Before you start making, I recommend you to open all the windows in your working area or shift to a well ventilated space because air dry clay contains fine particles that can make you cough. 🪟

We don’t wanna see a doctor during this holiday season right? 🩺

Step 1: Conditioning and kneading the clay

First of all take a big chunk of air dry clay piece because we are making a box and start conditioning the surface of it with a little bit of water. 💧

Conditioning helps to make the clay soft and easy to knead by reducing the stiffness of it.

Next start kneading the clay well like a pizza dough using pull, push and press techniques for about 3-5 minutes. 🍕

This will make the clay super soft, comfy to hold and easy to shape during the later steps.

But let me tell you kneading does something more than that, it basically helps to avoid clay from cracking as it dries. ⚠️

Let me tell you how.

Air dry clay has a lot of moisture inside which evaporates as the clay dries causing the clay to shrink. 💨

Usually the moisture inside of the air dry clay has spread unevenly. This results in uneven shrinkage of the clay because water evaporates at different areas of the air dry clay at different rates.

Now you might think why can’t we stop the clay shrinkage? Sorry to say, shrinkage of air dry clay is unavoidable but can be controlled by deciding how much we knead the clay and how much water we use when conditioning, kneading and smoothing the clay.

Kneading helps to spread the moisture inside of the clay evenly which helps to evaporate moisture at the same rate from all the areas. This avoids uneven shrinkage from happening and  clay won’t crack as it dries because shrinkage happens in all the areas at the same rate. ✅

When you use too much water when conditioning and kneading the clay, it causes rapid evaporation of water as it dries which can lead to surface cracks. Therefore make sure to use only a little bit of water for whatever thing you’re going to make with air dry clay. 💧

Step 2: Rolling the clay

Now place the kneaded clay piece on your working mat roll to an even thickness for about 1/4 inch to 5/16 inch (6 mm to 8 mm). 📏

Make sure to keep the thickness below ½ inch and above ¼ inch because rolling the clay slab too thin can cause clay from curling up from the edges as it dries like a potato chip. 🥔

Same like rolling the clay slab too thick takes more days or sometimes weeks to dry because of the poor air circulation inside which can also cause clay to crack as it dries due to the improper drying. ⏳

Make sure to use a non stick mat when rolling the clay like silicone or PVC mat (what I use) because as you roll, clay tries to make a grip between the mat and might split or crack when you try to lift it up after rolling. 🟩

Read: How to Keep Air Dry Clay from Sticking to Your Table

As for the rolling pin, I highly suggest you try an acrylic one because it does not stick with the clay which can also cause it to split as you roll. 🪵

Here’s tip for you to follow when rolling for a better result, 💡

When you roll, the moisture inside comes out and makes a tiny vacuum like space between the mat and the clay surface. This is what leads to surface cracks. Therefore changing the position of your clay from time to time as you roll is wiser choice even when you’re using a non-stick rolling pin and a mat. 🔄

Once you’re done rolling the clay slab, smooth it out by dipping your index finger in a cup of water and glide on the surface until it removes the tiny bumps, micro cracks and tiny imperfections on the surface. 👆💧

From now onwards, smoothing the surface after each step is essential for a nice and crack free surface. BUT NO TOO MUCH WATER. 🚫💧

Step 3: Cutting the base, long sides, and short ends

This is where I made a mistake. I trusted too much of my instinct and didn’t use a ruler to cut the base, long sides and short sides of the box. 🤦‍♀️ Instead,  take the ruler and try to trace straight lines on the clay slab. Yes, I did succeed in the end, but made a lot of mistakes along the way because reality was I’m too bad at drawing straight lines even with a ruler. So I had to correct the misaligned lines several times by smoothing the surface which was a super frustrating experience. 😅

Don’t be like me. Use a paper template to cut the square shapes which is so much easier than tracing freehand. 📄✂️

Here’re the measurements I used for the base, long sides and short ends, 📐

Or you can directly download the paper template here. Take a print out of it, cut along the lines and take the templates. 🖨️✂️

I had to knead and roll another piece of fresh clay to make the sides because the one I previously took was not enough to make all. I rolled the second clay piece to an even thickness as before and cut along the outlines to make the slabs.

After making the paper templates, place them on your rolled clay slab and cut along the edge which is super easy. 🔪

Smooth out the clay slabs you cut to remove tiny scratches that occurred during cutting. ✨

Step 4: Letting the slabs firm up

Don’t attach the clay slabs directly because they are still too wet and unable to stand up as steady as walls. ⏳

Tip: For steady walls with  no unbalance or slumping, you need to let clay slabs sit for around 30-45 minutes which is crucial. 💡

Wait until clay slabs become leather hard before attaching them for better, steady and straight walls. 🧱

Step 5: Scoring, slipping, and attaching the box walls

Now it’s time to attach the clay slabs we made. You cannot attach two air dry clay pieces just by pressing them together even though they look sticky. 🧩

First you need to score the areas of air dry clay you’re going to attach. This helps to make a better grip between the surface that won’t lose due to the shrinkage as the clay dries.
Next apply an air dry clay and water mixture which is known as the “slip” on top of the scored surfaces. This slip paste acts like a cement/glue for the air dry clay. You can make it by mixing tiny pieces of air dry clay with an equal amount of water and mixing them thoroughly and letting it sit for hours. This makes a creamy paste which is the “slip. 🥣

If you don’t have the slip, don’t worry. Instead you can tap the scored surfaces with a little bit of water. It works just fine. I know it because that’s what I used since I didn’t have the slip. But make sure only to use a little bit of water for tapping the scored surfaces. 💧

First I scored along the corners of the clay slabs that were about to attach. Then tapped the scored surfaces with a little bit of water. 🔪💧

Finally attached the walls to the base and assembled the centerpiece box. Do this carefully because walls tend to slump. Hold the walls you attached for several minutes steady before releasing. 📦

I made a curved shape in the middle by bending the long side slabs a little to the inside using my hands while attaching to make the shape more unique. It’s completely optional btw. You can make the walls straight or curve as you want. 👋

After assembling the box, I smoothed out the walls, base and the edges with a little bit of water to remove tiny imperfections. ✨

Congratulations friend! We made the centerpiece box with air dry clay, but it is still wet and needs to be decorated. 🎉

Step 6: Letting it dry

Now let the centerpiece box you made with air dry clay dry for 48-72 hours. I let mine dry for 3 days because the days were rainy and the humidity was high which slowed down the drying speed. 🌧️⌛

Wet air dry clay has a grey, off white color and is cold to touch. Clay turns into pure white when it is completely dried. So, check the surface after 2 days for any grey patches. If there’re some, leave it to dry for another 24 hours. 👀

Keep in mind to let your air dry clay project dry in a dry, well ventilated area. 🌬️

Always let your project dry slowly. If you really want to dry more effectively, flip the piece after 24 hours to even out the air circulation for both top and bottom sides. 🔄

However make sure not to paint or seal your air dry clay piece until it dried fully. Otherwise the paint may start to peel off and hours of your work can get ruined. 🛑

Step 7: Painting the centerpiece box

I used acrylics to paint my Christmas centerpiece box. 🎨

Actually acrylic paint is considered as the best paint for air dry clay because it comes in vivid colors, dries within 2 hours, no need to mix with water for mixing and preparation and most importantly makes a water resistant coating over the project. ✨

First of all, I painted the whole box with white acrylic color and let it dry for 2 hours. 🤍

Next I did the decorations with red, blue, black, green and orange colors to give it the Christmas theme look. ❤️💙🖤💚🧡

Apply thin and even coat along one direction for a more professional looking finish. 🖌️

Once the painting part is done, I let it dry for 2-3 hours before sealing. ⏳

Step 8: Sealing the box

Not like painting, for sealing you have different options such as gloss varnish, UV resin, polyurethane varnish, Mod Podge and epoxy resin. They all offer water resistant or waterproofing coating and long term protection. 🛡️

I used gloss varnish but if you want a more glassy finish, try epoxy resin. ✨

Gloss varnish offers a water resistant coating and protects your air dry clay project long term from weather elements. 🌧️

Apply 1-2 coats of thin and even coats of sealant in one direction and let each coat dry for 24 hours before applying another. 🖌️

Make sure not to apply sealant before the previous layer dries fully to avoid forming tacky spots and mushy core. ⚠️

Even after sealing your air dry clay project, never ever place it outside because harsh weather conditions damage the outer sealer and water will find a way to sneak inside of your air dry clay project and weaken the clay. Weakening of clay results in surface cracks and loose joints. Therefore always place your air dry clay items inside even after sealing it with the best sealer in the world. 🏠

Once the sealer is dried and cured, you’ll notice the real difference and you can start to admire how beautiful the thing you made. Your beautiful Christmas centerpiece box! 🌟

Final thoughts

Now it’s time for you to make your Christmas centerpiece box and fill it up with cute christmas ornaments, mini candles, candy canes and ribbons you got. 🎁🕯️🍬

Then place it on your holiday table. Everyone will surely admire it and you will have to talk about it for hours. 💬

Give it a try. I’m hundred percent sure you’ll be able to make a better one than mine. If you found out new tips and tricks to do things better please don’t forget to mention them in the comments section. Our community loves to hear them. 💬❤️

Be sure to tag @clayandmestudios in your Christmas centerpiece box. I sure love to see them when you do. I’ll see you next time with another cool project! Cheers! 🤟🏾

DIY Air Dry Clay Christmas Centerpiece Box (Easy Holiday Tutorial)

Warsha

Learn how I made a festive Christmas centerpiece box with air dry clay! Get step-by-step slab building tips, painting ideas, and safe candle styling tricks.

Print Instructions Pin Instructions

Supplies Needed

  

Air dry clay (DAS, Mont Marte, Jovi or any reputed brand you can find is okay)

Acrylic rolling pin

PVC mat or silicone mat (or non-stick surface)

Clay crafting tools 🛠️

Clay cutting tool (X-acto knife or small knife) 🔪

A ruler 📏

Cup of water or spray bottle 💧

Acrylic paints 🎨

Gloss varnish ✨

Paintbrushes 🖌️

Paper towels 🧻

Optional: Sponge or silicone sculpting tool (or you can use your finger) 🧽

Instructions

 

Step 1: Condition & Knead

• Add a drop of water and knead well for 3–5 minutes to keep it crack-free. 🍕💧

Step 2: Roll the Clay

• Roll to 1/4″–5/16″ thickness on a non-stick mat, rotating as you go. 📏🔄

Step 3: Cut the Pieces

• Use paper templates to cut out your base and wall panels easily. 📄✂️

Step 4: Firm Up

• Let slabs sit for 30–45 minutes until leather-hard so walls won’t slump. 🧱⏳

Step 5: Score, Slip & Assemble

• Score joint edges, apply slip or water, and press the box together! 📦🧩

Step 6: Dry Slowly

• Allow 48–72 hours to air dry away from direct heat or hairdryers. 🌧️⌛

Step 7: Paint & Decorate

• Use colorful acrylic paints for a fun holiday look. ❤️💚🎨

Step 8: Seal & Protect

• Apply gloss varnish or resin to protect your masterpiece! ✨🌟

Video

Today let’s make ornaments for your christmas tree using air dry clay. I have made a cute little christmas tree 🎄, a gingerbread man 🍪, a gingerbread house 🏠, a candy cane 🍬 and christmas bells 🔔 only using air dry clay. It was super fun! 🎉

In this article I’m gonna tell you each and every step I followed, tips and techniques I used to make them as a beginner. Yes, I’m also a beginner like you who is still learning, therefore no expert, complex steps will be shared. I guarantee you that because I too hate them.

At first I thought it’ll be a difficult task to make them because shapes need to be perfect and the colors also need to be highly accurate to match this Christmas season. Trust me! The process is super simple and easy to tell you. Start making with me! ✨

Let’s jump in! 🚀

Why air dry clay?

Air dry clay is the best clay if you’re a beginner. Let me tell you why.

Air dry clay is,

• Easy to shape.
• Easy to bend.
• No kiln or baking needed. (dries in the air)
• A lot cheaper than other clay types.
• Easy to fix mistakes.

I know you have heard a lot of good things about air dry clay and polymer clay. But air dry clay is better if you’re new to this because it is 2x or sometimes 3x cheaper than polymer clay.

When clay is cheap, we have enough room to have fun with it, experiment with it. They help to learn new clay skills and get better use to it. But during the process of learning a lot of clay will be wasted. Who likes to waste when the material is expensive right? No one. This is the main reason why air dry clay outperforms polymer clay for beginners.

Read: The Pros and Cons of Air Dry Clay: A Complete Beginner’s Guide

You can easily fix small scratches, micro cracks and bumps of air dry clay by smoothing out the surface with a little bit of water. They won’t be permanent if you act soon enough.

Yes I know I know, people and online gurus don’t like air dry clay because they crack and crumble so easily. I don’t say they are completely wrong. 

But trust me! If you follow the correct procedure and techniques you’ll have nothing to worry about. People make masterpieces with air dry clay. So you have nothing to worry about. I’ll teach how to avoid air dry clay from cracking by following the right techniques which are specific to this project. But if you learn to know in depth about the cracking of air dry clay and how to stop it, read this one.

In order to avoid clay from crumbling, read this one.

Tools and materials needed

• Air dry clay (DAS, Mont Marte, Jovi or any reputed brand you can find is okay)
• Acrylic rolling pin
• PVC mat or silicone mat (or non-stick surface)
• Clay crafting tools
• Wool yarn
• Clay cutting tool (X-acto knife or small knife)
• Cup of water or spray bottle
• A4 size paper
• Acrylic paints
• Gloss varnish
• Paintbrushes
• Paper towels
• Optional: Sponge or silicone sculpting tool (or you can use your finger)

If you couldn’t find any of the above tools, open each drawer in your kitchen please. You’ll find a handful of items that can replace above clay crafting tools. Air dry clay projects need to be budget friendly. Use toothpicks, small knives and cutting boards if you don’t have any of the above as suitable.

Air dry clay christmas ornaments tutorial video

I have filmed everything I did during this project and uploaded it for your help. Watch this video tutorial as you make to get a better understanding about the project with this written tutorial.

Feel free to watch and make fine christmas ornaments! 📺

Finished watching the video? Let’s have a look at the detailed written step-by-step guide.

Step by step clay christmas tree ornaments tutorial

Before starting, open all the windows of your working room or go to a well ventilated area. 🪟 I don’t want you to cough during the process because of fine air dry clay particles. 😷

Step 1: Condition the clay

Conditioning air dry clay is must before you start making any project. Take a fresh piece of clay out from the package and tap a little bit of water on the surface.

Make sure to take a big chunk of clay piece because we gonna make 5 ornaments from one clay piece.

Conditioning makes the clay soft and easy to knead. Plus, it gives the reduced moisture of the air dry clay during the shipping.

Step 2: Knead the clay

Kneading helps to make the clay soft, easy to shape and most importantly avoid it from cracking as the clay dries.

Knead your air dry clay piece using pull, push and press techniques like making a pizza dough while adding droplets of water.

Air dry clay is a highly porous material with lots of air bubbles and moisture inside. But they are spread randomly across different layers of air dry clay. As the clay dries moisture will start to evaporate and clay will start to shrink. Since the shrinkage of air dry clay happens unevenly due to the rapid evaporation and randomly spread moisture content, it starts forming surface cracks.

These surface cracks will become wider and deeper as the clay dries due to the uneven shrinkage.

But you can avoid this (not the shrinkage of the clay because that’s the nature of air dry clay), I mean the surface cracking by kneading the clay well before shaping only with a little bit of water.

Kneading helps to spread moisture evenly across all the layers of air dry clay and releases air bubbles out.

Having evenly spread moisture means no uneven shrinkage as the clay dries. Therefore clay won’t crack as it shrinks when drying.

Now you can clearly see why kneading is one of the most important steps when working with air dry clay.

I have seen many Tiktok and Youtube tutorials that do not highlight the kneading part well. But trust me, they do knead, but they don’t show you. Gatekeeping is not good for a growing clay community.

Knead the clay for around 3-5 minutes until it becomes soft enough for shaping. Don’t worry you’ll feel when it’s time to stop the kneading and move onto the rolling step.

Don’t knead too long because it can cause air dry clay to lose moisture and it may start to crumble.

Step 3: Roll the clay

Now start rolling the kneaded clay piece to an even thickness about ¼ inch.

Make sure to use a non-stick mat and a rolling pin to avoid clay from sticking to them while rolling.

Non stick mats I recommend are silicone and PVC mats and use an acrylic rolling pin for the rolling.

While you’re rolling, make sure to keep the thickness of the clay slab in between ½ inch -¼ inch because when the clay slab is too thin, it has a high tendency to curl up from the edges as it dries like a fried potato chip. This scenario is known as the warping of air dry clay.

When the clay slab is too thick, it can cause surface cracks due to the uneven shrinkage because inside layers of air dry clay dries much much slower than the outside layers because of low air circulation. This becomes a bigger problem when the thickness is high so you have to maintain ¼ inch thickness.

Flip, turn and rotate the clay slab around 90 degrees while you’re rolling because rolling it in the same position for too long causes it to make a good grip with the mat even though it is a non-stick material. 

Read: How to Keep Air Dry Clay from Sticking to Your Table

As you roll, the water inside will come out and make a seal between the clay slab and the mat, which can cause splits and cracks as you try to lift the clay up while rolling. Therefore always change the clay position as you roll.

My rolling mat is A4 size. So I rolled the clay slab nearly that big because I wanted to cut 5 shapes. 

Once you’re done with rolling, smooth out the surface with a little bit of water to remove small cracks, bumps and tiny imperfections.

You can do the smoothing by dipping your index finger in a cup of water and gliding over the clay surface repeatedly.

Step 4: Make the paper template

As I mentioned in the caption, we are not gonna use cookie cutters. That’s because I don’t have them. Lol.

If you don’t have cookie cutters with the shapes of a christmas tree, gingerbread man, gingerbread house, christmas hat and christmas bells feel free to use them.

If you don’t have them, don’t worry or panic. Follow the easy method below which I also used to make the templates.

1. Take an A4 size paper.
2. Place that inside of your printer.
3. Google christmas decoration pictures. (christmas tree, gingerbread man, gingerbread house, christmas hat and christmas bells)
4. Paste black and white outline images of them in an A4 size canvas. (Use Canva)
5. Take a print out of it.
6. Cut along the shapes outlines and separate the templates.

This is how I made the paper templates for my Christmas ornaments. Simple as easy.

You don’t need to run to a store or search molds or cookie cutters online. I highly recommend the paper template method because it is budget friendly, cheap and able to make any shape you can find on Google.

Now we have 5 different shapes. It’s time to make them live.

Step 5: Tracing and cutting your shapes

Now place the paper templates you made on the rolled clay slab and trace around the outlines of them using the clay tracing tool or using a toothpick.

After tracing the outlines, make sure to map the details of your shapes as well. For example you need to map the mouth of the gingerbread man. This is useful when painting. 

Next patiently cut along the traced lines using the X-acto knife.

When you’re cutting, do not drag the knife horizontally on the mat because jagged and split edges may occur. Always cut using up and down motions. 🔪

This way tiny clay pieces won’t stick to your knife and even if, you can easily clean them up before starting cutting again.

Up and down cutting motion (which means you should lift the blade as cut) helps to get sharp edges around your christmas ornaments.

I don’t recommend freehand cutting instead of using paper templates because these are not organic shapes and angles need to be precise.

After cutting each shape, carefully remove the paper templates.

Finally don’t forget to smooth out the surface and the edges of your shapes using a little bit of water for a smooth surface with no micro cracks, scratches and to have sharp edges.

Step 6: Punching the hanging hole

Punch a hole using a clay crafting tool or toothpick on top of your each shape. 📍 No need to make the hole too big because we only need a room to insert a thread or ribbon 🎀 to hang it on the christmas tree.

Finally, remove the excess clay carefully and smooth out the surfaces of the shapes you made.

Step 7: Make the candy cane

I made the candy cane ornament separately because I wanted to give it a 3D look. Here’s how I did that,

1. Take a small fresh piece of air dry clay.
2. Condition and knead it for 2-3 minutes.
3. Roll it to a snake (cylindrical shape) using your palms.
4. Bend the edge.
5. Shaping the hook using a small clay piece.
6. Adding the hanging hook to the candy cane body.

When you’re adding the hanging hook to the body, make sure to follow the score and slip method. 

Which means first score the attaching surface of the candy cane body (so small area) and the handle edges of the hook. Then tap a little bit of water (or a creamy paste made of air dry clay and water called slip) on the scored areas and press them together for a few seconds.

You cannot attach two air dry clay pieces just by pressing them. Always follow the above score and slip method.

Congratulations friends! We have successfully made all 6 christmas ornaments shapes. But they are still wet. It’s time to dry them.

Step 8: Let the ornaments dry

Now let each christmas tree ornament you made dry for 48-72 hours in a cool dry well ventilated area.

Do not place your air dry clay pieces under direct sunlight ☀️, outside or blow with a hair dryer 💨 because rushing the drying process can cause surface cracks.

Let me tell you how.

When you rush the drying process using the above unapproved methods, the outside layer of air dry clay dries fast due to the high air circulation or high water evaporation compared to the layers inside.

This triggers rapid evaporation of water which builds up tension between the inside and outside layers of air dry clay. This leads to the uneven shrinkage of air dry clay resulting in surface cracks.

Instead you can flip the pieces from time to time as they dry to even out the moisture evaporation speeds everywhere.

Always make sure outside and inside layers of air dry clay dries nearly at the same rate. This avoids the uneven shrinkage issue and no cracks as the clay dries.

Plus, wet air dry clay feel cold to touch due to the evaporation of the moisture inside.

Check the surface after 2 days. If you see grey patches, let it dry more for another 24 hours.

However you should not start painting or sealing the ornaments until they dry fully.

Step 9: Paint the ornaments

Use acrylic paints 🎨 to dry your clay ornaments because they are considered as the best paints for air dry clay.

Acrylic paints dries quickly within 1-2 hours, no need of water for mixing and preparation, easy to apply, comes in vivid colors and makes a water resistant coating over the air dry clay project.

Apply thin and even coats of acrylic along one direction to avoid forming tacky spots.

I mainly used red, green, white and brown colors for painting my Christmas tree ornaments. You can select the colors as you wish. Nothing went wrong.

After painting all the clay ornaments let them dry for 2 hours before sealing.

Step 10: Seal the ornaments

Sealing your air dry clay projects is must because they can’t withstand environmental elements. Moisture always tries to sneak inside of the dried air dry clay and weaken them.

You can use gloss varnish, polyurethane varnish, Mod Podge, UV resin and epoxy resin for sealing air dry clay projects. They all do offer water resistant or water proofing finish.

I used gloss varnish because it offers water resistant sealing, glossy ceramic like finish and long term protection.

Even after applying a sealer I never recommend placing air dry clay projects outside because harsh weather conditions like winter and rain can damage the sealer outside and damage the clay inside.

Apply thin and even coats of gloss varnish and let each coat dry for 24 hours.

After the final coat, let it dry and cure for 24 hours.

Likewise I have sealed all 6 air dry clay christmas tree ornaments using gloss varnish and they all looked so beautiful and glossy.

Now it’s time to hang them and enjoy the beauty. 🎄 As of writing this article, I haven’t purchased a Christmas tree yet. Once I get one, I’ll hang the ornaments up and share a photo right here! 📸

Final thoughts

Now you know every single detail from start to finish how to make christmas tress ornaments using air dry clay. 

Now it’s your time to make the ornaments following the method I mentioned. 

I challenge you to go above six and make more and more ornaments which will add a unique look to your Christmas tree. 

Every guest will appreciate them and you can proudly tell them the story of how you made them. This will make your Christmas so special.

Don’t forget to share your feedback and new methods you found while making them in the comments section so others can learn too.

Be sure to tag @clayandmestudios in your clay christmas tree ornaments. I sure love to see them when you do. I’ll see you next time with another awesome project! Cheers! 🤟🏾

Christmas Tree Ornaments with Air Dry Clay 🎄

Warsha

Learn how to make handmade air dry clay Christmas ornaments at home without cookie cutters!

Print Instructions Pin Instructions

Supplies Needed

  

Air dry clay (DAS, Mont Marte, Jovi or any reputed brand you can find is okay)

Acrylic rolling pin

PVC mat or silicone mat (or non-stick surface)

Clay crafting tools

Clay cutting tool (X-acto knife or small knife)

Cup of water or spray bottle

A4 size paper

Acrylic paints

Wool yarn

Gloss varnish

Paintbrushes

Paper towels

Optional: Sponge or silicone sculpting tool (or you can use your finger)

Instructions

 

1. Condition & Knead

• Soften a chunk of air dry clay with a little water and knead for 3–5 minutes to spread moisture evenly and prevent cracking. 🧼

2. Roll the Clay Slab

• Roll the clay evenly to ¼-inch thickness on a non-stick surface, rotating regularly to avoid sticking. 📜

3. Trace & Cut Shapes

• Place paper templates on the slab, trace the outlines, and carefully cut with up-and-down motions using a craft knife. ✂️

4. Punch Hanging Holes

• Use a toothpick or small tool to punch a hole near the top of each ornament for hanging. 📍

5. Dry Slowly

• Let the ornaments dry naturally in a well-ventilated room for 48–72 hours, flipping them occasionally to prevent warping. 💨

6. Paint & Detail

• Apply thin, even coats of festive acrylic paint and let dry for 1–2 hours. 🎨

7. Seal & Protect

• Finish with a thin coat of gloss varnish to protect against moisture and give a shiny, ceramic-like finish. ✨

Video

I was able to make a beautiful but spooky tray of Jack Skellington face using air dry clay and here I’m gonna tell you everything I did, every step I followed and every mistake I made along the way to make it succeed in as simple a way as possible.

I’m also a beginner who doesn’t like to read expert and difficult tutorials. So, I followed the simple and easy steps so you too can follow along with me until the end to bring Jack Skellington face to life with air dry clay.

Ok! Enough chit chat. Let’s start making! 🎨

Why did I use air dry clay?

Air dry clay is considered as one of the best clay materials for beginners. Let me tell you why I think like that.

Air dry clay is,

• Cheap
• No kiln or baking needed
• Easy to shape and bend
• Easy to fix mistakes
• Easy to dry (dries in the air)
• Beginner friendly
• High availability

As beginners we love to have fun and do our little experiments with clay. Yes, that wastes a lot of clay, but if the clay is so cheap, I don’t think that will be an issue.

For example air dry clay is 2x or 3x times cheaper than polymer clay. Therefore you have enough room to have experiments and fun with it which are helpful to learn new clay skills, how to handle and how to get the shape we want. You won’t do them with an expensive clay type because as beginners we have a tight budget.

Because of that air dry clay is great, especially for beginners.

Yes I know I know, air dry clay is prone to cracks. But surface cracks can be avoided following the right techniques and able to fix using simple tricks and techniques.

Read about all the pros and cons of air dry clay here.

Materials & tools you’ll need

• Air dry clay (DAS, Mont Marte, Jovi, or any reputed brand you can find is okay) 
• Acrylic rolling pin 
• PVC mat or silicone mat 
• Metal jar lid
• Clay crafting tools 
• Clay cutting tool (X-acto knife or small knife) 
• Cup of water or spray bottle 
• Acrylic paints (white and black) 
• Gloss varnish
• Paintbrushes 
• Drawing pen or pencil
• Paper towels 
• Optional: Sponge or silicone sculpting tool (or you can use your finger)

If you couldn’t find any of the above tools, don’t visit the store, check your kitchen drawers 🛠️. You’ll find a handful of items that can replace clay crafting tools like toothpicks, small knife and cutting boards.

Video tutorial of Jack Skellington clay tray

I have recorded everything I did to make this beautiful and spooky Jack Skellington clay tray. You can follow the video tutorial along this guide to avoid missing any step and tricks I used.

Feel free to watch and make a nice Jack Skellington tray! 📺

Finished watching the video? Let’s have a look at the detailed written step-by-step guide.

Step by step: How I made my Jack Skellington clay tray

Before you start making, open all the windows in your working area and make the space more ventilated because air dry clay contains fine particles that can make you cough.

Step 1: Conditioning and kneading the clay

First of all take a fresh piece of clay out of the package and cut the required piece and wrap the remaining clay piece properly.

Next condition the clay by adding droplets of water on to the fresh clay piece you’ve taken.

Then start kneading the clay using pull, push and press techniques just like when you’re making a pizza dough.

Keep kneading the clay for 3-5 minutes until it becomes soft and comfy enough without any stiffness which is great for shaping the clay. You can apply a little bit of water while kneading the clay to make it easier.

Make sure to apply only a little bit of water when conditioning and kneading the clay because water is considered as the worst enemy of air dry clay 💧. Let me tell you why.

Air dry clay is a highly porous material with lots of moisture inside. But these moisture and air pockets are spread in a random manner. As the clay dries the water inside will start to evaporate resulting in the clay to shrink. This is unavoidable, but we can control the moisture evaporation rate of the air dry clay and let the moisture evaporate almost equal in all the areas by kneading because rapid and uneven moisture evaporation leads to surface cracks.

Having organized moisture concentration with no air bubbles inside helps air dry clay to shrink evenly as the clay dries due to the equal moisture evaporation rates.

If you skipped the kneading process, sorry to say, your air dry clay is likely to crack as it dries due to the above scenario I described.

Now you can see kneading not only makes the clay soft but also does a valuable task to stop the air dry clay from cracking as it dries. Therefore, it is a must.

Step 2: Rolling the clay

Now place the kneaded clay piece on your mat and start rolling to an even thickness about ¼ inch.

Otherwise when you try to lift the clay up after rolling, it’ll peel off and cause splits and cracks because as you roll the moisture inside comes out and forms a seal like structure between the clay and the surface. Therefore changing the clay position is must as you roll.

Also make sure to use a non-stick mat as your working mat. I use a PVC mat and silicone mat is also recommended.

Use an acrylic rolling pin to avoid clay from sticking as you roll. 

If you couldn’t find a non-stick mat or rolling pin as I mentioned above, feel free to use a wooden cutting board and rolling pin. But don’t forget to add a parchment paper between the clay slab and the wooden cutting board and another parchment paper between the clay slab and the rolling pin as you roll.

If the wooden cutting board or rolling pin is unsealed, they’ll suck the moisture out of air dry clay pretty quickly and make it dry forming micro cracks and most probably stick to the clay slab giving you a hard time to separate them. This is why we use parchment papers as barriers.

Another thing to consider is the thickness of your clay slab. As I mentioned above ¼ inch is the ideal amount of thickness you should go with. 

Rolling the clay slab too thin, I mean less than ¼ inch, loses the structural integrity of the clay and it is highly likely to warp and crack as it dries. You’ll see the clay tray curl upward from the edges like a fried potato chip as it dries due to the warping.

On the other hand, rolling the clay slab too thick, higher than ½ inch, can cause uneven shrinkage forming surface cracks as it dries because inside layers of air dry clay is likely to dry much slower compared to the outside layers due to the high thickness of the clay. Plus, it’ll take more days or sometimes weeks to dry fully.

Because of the above reasons try to maintain the thickness of the clay slab between ¼ inch-½ inch.

Step 3: Cutting the circular base

Usually I’m a big believer of freehand cutting because I’m so bad at drawing and I want to improve it by always tracing and cutting the clay slab freehand. I rarely use cookie cutters, molds or templates.

But in this particular project, I wanted to make the clay tray have a perfectly circular tray base. Therefore, I used a metal jar lid. You can either use a plastic container lid, circular cookie cutter or any other shape to cut the clay in a perfect circle shape.

Read, How to Cut Perfectly Round Air Dry Clay Bases Using Household Templates

Place the jar lid in the middle of the rolled clay slab and cut along the outline carefully. If you’re afraid to cut the clay directly, trace the outline and then start cutting.

Once you’re done cutting, remove the excess clay carefully which is a satisfying experience.

Next remove the lid and smooth out the edges and the surface of the clay slab. 

You can smooth out the air dry clay by dipping your index finger in a cup of water and gliding repeatedly over the clay surface and around the edges to make it nice, clean and smooth. Smoothing helps to get rid of tiny bumps, micro cracks and imperfections on the clay surface. So do it regularly after each step going forward but only with a little bit of water.

Good job my friend! 👍 We made the tray base. Now it’s time to make the tray rim and attach it to make the complete setup.

Read, How to Cut Clean, Sharp Edges in Air Dry Clay (Without Tearing)

Step 4: Cutting the tray rim

Making the tray rim is easy. First take a fresh clay piece and knead it well.

Then roll the clay piece like a snake shape using your hands.

Next, roll the cylindrical clay piece using the acrylic rolling pin to an even thickness about ¼ inch. 

Finally cut the edges and make the width along the length even.

Step 5: Attach tray rim to the tray base

You can’t attach two air dry clay pieces just by pressing them together. There is a special method for that which is called the “score and slip method”.

Slip is made by mixing equal amounts of air dry clay pieces and water thoroughly in a small plastic can and letting it sit for hours. It is a creamy looking paste that can be used when attaching air dry clay pieces and used again for future projects as well.

First of all I scored along the edge of the tray base using my clay scoring tool.

Then I scored along the bottom length of the tray rim.

I didn’t have the “slip”. Therefore, I tapped the scored surfaces with a little bit of water. Trust me water works as good as the slip because water is one of the main ingredients of the slip. If you don’t have the slip, use water as I did and it works just fine. Don’t worry.

Next attach the tray rim around the tray base carefully and cut the edges of the tray rim at an angle to attach the two ends smoothly without occurring a bump.

After attaching the tray rim to the tray base, smooth out the surface and around the tray rim to remove any seams and micro cracks.

Step 6: Reinforce the joint by adding a thin clay coil

Notice the sharp 90 degree angle between the tray base and the tray rim. As the clay dries the force towards this sharp joint will increase due to the shrinkage of the clay. 

So we need to make sure the joint won’t lose as the clay dries by adding a thin clay coil seam to it.

Adding a thin clay coil seam reinforces the joint between the tray base and the tray rim by making the joint area more thick and removing the 90 degree sharp angle. This helps to keep the joint strong enough under clay shrinkage and bare more forces.

Make the clay coil as thin as possible because we don’t wanna make it look separate sections as the clay dries. 

Use a little bit of water and smooth along the thin clay coil to get rid of the seam.

Congrats my friends! 🎉 You have successfully made the tray. But it is still wet.

Step 7: Let the tray dry

Now let the clay dry for about 48-72 hours. Air dry clay drying time depends on the humidity of your area and clay thickness.

If you live in a tropical climate with high humidity your air dry clay project may take 3-4 days to dry fully due to the slow water evaporation speed.

However you should not start painting or sealing the tray until it dries fully.

You can identify whether it is fully dried by the color of the surface and by touching. Usually wet air dry clay has a grey off white color and it changes to pure white and more bright white color once it is fully dried.

Plus, wet air dry clay feel cold to touch due to the evaporation of the moisture inside.

Check the surface after 2 days. If you see grey patches, let it dry more for another 24 hours.

Let the air dry clay project dries slowly in a well ventilated area, because rushing the drying process by keeping it inside of an oven or placing it under direct sunlight or applying a heat source will result in surface cracks due to the rapid evaporation of water causing the uneven shrinkage.

Once the tray is fully dried you can sand the whole surface with a fine grit (320 grit) sandpaper to remove tiny cracks, imperfections and make it smooth.

Step 8: Drawing the Jack Skellington face on the tray

I googled the Jack Skellington face 2d outline and drew it on the tray base carefully before painting using a pencil ✏️.

As I told you this took a lot of time because I’m so bad at drawing. 

Step 9: Painting the tray and the face

After drawing the Jack Skellington face on the tray base, I painted it completely with white acrylic color 🖌️.

Oh! I forgot to tell you I used acrylic paints for air dry clay because it is considered as the best option due to several reasons such as,

• Comes in vivid colors.
• Dries quickly within 2 hours.
• No need to water for mixing or preparation.
• Easy to apply.
• Makes a water resistant coating.

Water weakens the air dry clay causing cracks. Therefore, always use paints that don’t require water for mixing them. 

Apply thin and even coats of acrylic along one direction to avoid forming tacky spots and stains.

Next I painted Jack’s eyes, mouth, nose, eyebrows in black acrylic color. Do this carefully specially when painting the outline because mistakes are highlighted due to the white background.

Finally, I painted the tray rim outline using the same black.

After painting the whole tray, I let it dry for 2 hours in a well ventilated area before sealing.

Now you can notice how beautiful your tray is.

Step 10: Sealing the Jack Skellington clay tray

I used gloss varnish for sealing this tray or you can either use UV resin, polyurethane varnish, Mod Podge or epoxy resin if you need a glassy finish. All above sealers protect your item from outside moisture and splashes.

Gloss varnish makes a water resistant coating which helps to protect our clay tray long term. Plus, it provides a glossy ceramic like finish.

Apply 2-3 thin and even coats in one direction and seal the tray completely. Let each coat dry for 24 hours before applying another.

After the final coat, let it dry and cure for 24 hours.

Even after sealing the project, never ever try to place it outside. Air dry clay can’t withstand outside due to the harsh weather conditions like rain and winter. They damage the coat and find a way to sneak inside and damage the tray.

Congratulations ladies and gentlemen! 🥳 We have finally successfully made out a beautiful but spooky looking Jack Skellington tray with air dry clay. Now it’s your time!

Final thoughts

You can use this Jack Skellington clay tray as a table decor for this halloween 🎃 or christmas 🎄 season. Guests will find it unique and beautiful and you’ll have to tell them the journey of making it by yourself. That will be a quiet story!

Or you can gift this nice home decor to someone important in your life 💝. They’ll feel loved specially because this is a handmade item.

I think I told you every step I did, every tip and trick I followed to make this successful. But if you ever come into a question or trouble don’t hesitate to ask from me or from our community. Simply mention them in the comments section or contact me.

Also if you discovered new methods of doing things even better than I said, please share them as well in the comments. As a clay community I love to hear from you guys. That makes me proud.

Be sure to tag @clayandmestudios in your Jack Skellington clay tray project. I sure love to see them when you do. I’ll see you next time with another cool project! Cheers! 🤟🏾

How I Made a Jack Skellington Tray with Air Dry Clay

Warsha

Learn how I made this spooky cute Jack Skellington tray with air dry clay! Follow my easy step by step tutorial to craft your own Halloween trinket dish.

Print Instructions Pin Instructions

Supplies Needed

  

Air dry clay (DAS, Mont Marte, Jovi, or any reputed brand you can find is okay)

Acrylic rolling pin

PVC mat or silicone mat

Metal jar lid

Clay crafting tools

Clay cutting tool (X-acto knife or small knife)

Cup of water or spray bottle

Acrylic paints (white and black)

Gloss varnish

Paintbrushes

Drawing pen or pencil

Paper towels

Optional: Sponge or silicone sculpting tool (or you can use your finger)

Instructions

 

Step 1: Prep & Knead 🤹

• Knead fresh clay for 3–5 mins with a splash of water to banish air bubbles and prevent cracking.

Step 2: Roll It Out 🍕

• Roll clay on a non-stick surface to an even ¼ inch thickness (flip often to avoid sticking!).

Step 3: Cut the Base ⭕

• Trace and cut a neat circle using a jar lid, then smooth the edges with a wet finger.

Step 4: Form the Rim 🐍

• Roll a long clay strip (¼ inch thick) to make the tray’s outer wall.

Step 5: Score & Attach 🧩

• Cross-hatch the edges, apply water or slip, and attach the rim firmly to the base.

Step 6: Reinforce 🛠️

• Blend a super thin clay coil along the inner seam to secure the joint.

Step 7: Dry & Sand ⏳

• Let it dry in a ventilated spot for 48–72 hours, then sand smoothly with fine sandpaper.

Step 8: Draw & Paint 🎨

• Pencil Jack’s spooky face, paint the whole tray white with acrylics, and fill in details in black.

Step 9: Seal & Protect ✨

• Apply 2–3 coats of gloss varnish for a glossy, water-resistant ceramic look!

Video