EDIT: Here’s a link to part 2.
Ok. A post.
We played around with clay one recent Friday night making textured clay dishes…among other things…from the December 2013 Whimseybox. I, once again, forgot to take photos of the box contents beforehand. I can tell you that the kit included a large block of air-hardening clay, something that looked like it should be a circular cookie cutter (it was rather squished), a doily, an emery board, and a skewer.
Once again, I had issues with the packaging. Someone did not take great care in packing the box. The wooden skewer lived up to its name and skewered the package of clay. All the way through.
Remember, this is air-hardening clay. It’s normally kept in an air tight package otherwise it hardens in whatever shape it’s in and if it’s not the shape you wanted it…well, too bad for you.
So, as I was saying, the skewer punctured through the packaging into the clay and I had hard bits in the clay all around the puncture and about a third of the clay had already started to dry out. I find it hard to believe that no one noticed this while packing. There’s a lot of packing material inside the box itself to prevent something like this from happening. I don’t think it would have happened during the jostling of shipping because the skewer had been pushed all the way through to the other side of the clay. It seems more like careless packing and then just carelessness all around.
Also, the cookie cutter that was supposed to be a circle was squished completely out of shape, nearly to the point of snapping.
Ok, end rant on packing and packaging.
There was plenty of clay for three largish dishes. I opted to make a rather shallow, flat dish. I was thinking that it could house my keys while they’re not actively in use so I don’t have to hunt all over my desk for my keys. I’ll just look in the dish. Um…here is my dish upside down on a cup because I didn’t want a plate or a tile. You’ll note that with my semi-dry lump of clay (I took the driest part because why would I give that to someone else?) I was still able to make a dog bone pendant and this weird bear thing I have no use for. One of my girls very kindly brought out some cookie cutters from her collection for us to use. Also, I brought my stone rolling pin because it’s easier to clean than a wooden one and I didn’t want to eat clay later on.
The same girl who brought out the cookie cutters also brought out her name stamp and textured her dish with it. I rather like how it turned out. She also decided to crimp the edges of her dish a bit.
And finally, we had one girl who wanted a very interesting looking bowl and stamped a bear inside of it. You can also see all her marbles/eggs that she made in the background with leftover clay. Also another bone pendant. Actually, we made three of those because we all have dogs. I rather doubt that any of our dogs will be wearing their pendants though.
Next up, we’ll (or probably just me) be finishing off the edges and then painting and finishing.
FYI, the clay smells terrible and continues to smell even after having dried and aired out for weeks.
EDIT: Here’s a link to part 2.
Random moosages as I see fit. 