DIY Christmas | Hammered Clay Star Decorations

Because, last weeks garland was not enough - here's another craft that could be used in many different ways - hammered clay stars!

| WHAT YOU NEED |

White Clay / Cookie Cutters / Paint / Paint Brush / Thread / Glue Gun

| HOW TO MAKE IT |

This is a craft that's perfect for keeping yourself busy for half an hour - and kids can get involved too - it's simple and breaks up in to two parts.

To start, roll out your clay to the thickness of a £1 coin.  With a strip of embellishments, I made impressions in the clay [I picked my gems up from the pound store and they were perfect!]:

Use your chosen cookie cutter to cut your shapes before removing the excess clay and transferring your shapes on to a sheet of baking paper to be left to dry [I made this craft at the end of last weekend and left to dry throughout the week, but refer to the clay instructions for your drying time, 24 hours usually does it!]

Tip:

If you want to use your shapes as individual hanging decorations, grab a skewer or straw to make a hole to thread ribbon through at the top of your shapes.

Once dry, smooth any rough or uneven edges with a quick sand paper and use a dry cloth to clean your stars.  Now, you can leave your stars as they are, or paint them in a colour to match your Christmas theme or decor.  I used silver craft paint and left my stars to dry completely.

To hang my stars as a garland, I simply used a hot glue gun to fix a length of thread in place at the back of each star:

I displayed my stars with a thin string light across my mantle [along with this - layered garlands is my Christmas aesthetic!] - but stay tuned for tomorrows post for another idea - how would you display yours? [you can see the DIY wreath made with these here]