Clay Star Advent Garland

Hello - a warning about the post today and on Thursday - they are Christmas related, but as I have seen the Coke advert, I feel that this is OK.  I hope you do too, as I don't think I'll be completely free of Christmas creeping in to posts from now on - but the rest of this month I don't plan on being completely taken over, but I love December so, so much, that I like to plan as much for it as I can to really enjoy and take it all in.  Are you the same?

This weekend, I decided to get organised with my calendar for 2013....so I start with the first part of my advent today, which can be used just as well on its own - but if you fancy having a go too, the second part will be up here on Thursday.  I'm going back to my trusty favourite - air drying clay.  Hurrah!

If you want a slightly more detailed [read 'post with lots and lots of photos'], you can find that here.  [Other projects can be found here, here, here, here and here.  I do have an addiction].

I started with a rolled out round of clay to approximately 0.5cm, using a small star cookie cutter and using a skewer to punch holes in the top triangle.  I then used my stamping kit to impress numbers 1 - 25 on each of the stars:

and left them to dry for around 24 hours in total.  Using a fine-grain sanding paper, I smoothed out the edges and backs, but as I like the 'hand-made-iness' of it all, I left the number stamp impressions:

Learning from past crumbling corners, snapped edges and breakages, I gave all stars a good coating
 of varnish front and back [do this in a really well ventilated area - outside if possible - it stinks!]

Leave to dry and your advent number stars are ready.
The skewered holes can be used to thread the stars individually as decorations:

[I also threaded small bells to some]....adding them to your tree each day....or strung together as a garland:

You could also use the garland to hang little treat bags from each star:

I'm really pleased with them and I like the thought that I can use them year after year in different ways.

I hope you'll come back on Thursday and I'll show you the finished advent for 2013:

....and take bets on whether I can realistically resist eating any of the contents over the rest of the month.

see you then x