Pure Ella

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make your own pottery-like vase

by

One quiet evening, when piano music replaced the rustling daytime noise and a hot camomile tea was steaming up on my kitchen table…. I started to create a simple object from items I had on hand. This craft project wasn’t planned ~ it just happened and evolved  into a beautiful piece of art. I had a nice evening to myself and a pretty table accessory by the morning. Simple is always beautiful.
Create a simple Salt Dough recipe by combining your ingredients: 4 cups flour, 1 cup salt, 1-1/2 cups warm water. I like to dilute the salt in the water first to remove all the crystals. Keep some flour and warm water on hand. A sprinkle of flour will prevent from sticking and a little warm water will act as glue.  Knead out into a shape that would roughly cover your bottle or jar.  With your hands, start wrapping and shaping the dough all around to cover your glass. Pay attention to the thickness of your dough so that it’s even all around and covers the glass nicely without any thin see-through spots. Using the extra dough, you can create shapes, flowers and designs that would get added to your vase. This dough forms easily (like playdough) and it’s simple to create unique shapes and designs.

Once your design is ready, place the item on a baking tray and place in a preheated oven to 250 F. and bake for about 2-3 hours (depending on the size). Watch so it looks dry and does not start to yellow. Turn oven off but leave the piece still in the oven to cool completely, even over night.

Once it cools down completely you can paint your design. I chose a simple white acrylic paint as I wanted to preserve the clean simplicity of the design.

I hope you like this project and you will try it yourself. These would be beautiful as gifts for the holidays and a great fun project to do with kids. I will to do a project like this with miss Gabriella very soon ~ we’ll see what creative spin a 4 year old will put on this ;)

ps. these are not forever, they may crack over time with the change of temperatures or direct sunlight etc. But they are lovely to make and definitely add a great unique touch to a vignette. It’s practically free to make them so it’s still very much worth it ;) Once you’re done with them, just soak and peel off the baked-on dough and give the glass bottle yet another new life. xo

salt dough ball photo from here

Comments

    • Well, my ‘one quiet evening’ was a few months ago ;)

      I actually did want to test them first before I carried through with this post.
      Turns out they’re not forever. Mine cracked on the top near the neck of the bottle but what I did was I applied a little extra dough into the crack (mixed from a small amount of the same ingredients) and it still holds up fine.

      It might crack again – like I said, it’s not forever. But still a great fun project I’d say that costs practically nothing to do ;)

  4. Dearest sweet ella, this is such a wonderful and very beautiful DIY! I used to use this method to make clay craft back in the school days. Thanks so much for sharing and i really adore this! Have a lovely merry happy day and love to you!

    • Thank you Jacqueline ;)
      That’s what my sister and friend said when they saw this – they associated the craft with a kid’s project with a funny face on it ~ not so here ;) although I would love my 4 year old to do her version now ;)
      Hope you’re having a wonderful day. xo

  5. How wonderful! I have a feeling my attempt wouldn’t come out quite so beautiful, but it looks so easy, it might be worth a try. =)

    • Clair, I think it would be totally beautiful ;)
      It is trial and error until you find the perfect consistency of the dough – but it’s fun and really costs you nothing and it really does look great once it’s all done ;)
      Good luck if you do decide to make one ;)

  7. i saw this when you first posted it and it’s such a neat *change* from what it was. looks like good messy fun! (you know, for people who like that sort of thing :P)