DIY Marbled Clay Vase | Popcorn and Chocolate

Marbled Clay Vase: Make it in under 10 minutes!

April 19, 20174 Comments

If you love marble and simple projects then try making this marbled clay vase! Scroll down to find the full tutorial.

I’m a big fan of marble. I think it adds a sleek touch of decor to your home. I’m an even bigger fan of not spending an arm and a leg on marble decor. There are several techniques one can use to marble but for this vase we decided to keep it pretty simple, and indoor craft friendly.

Simple crafts is what we are all about at Popcorn & Chocolate. Simple and cheap (but not cheap looking)! This DIY marbled vase is no exception. All you need to make it is some black and white Sculpey and an oven. Easy peasy.

Materials:

White and black Sculpey (or any oven bake clay)
Rolling pin
Knife
Parchment paper
Oven

Instructions:

If your clay is like mine and has been sitting around for a couple of years, start by kneading a big chunk (about 1/4 cup) of white Sculpey in your hands to soften it up a bit. Do the same with a smaller (about a tablespoon) amount of black clay.
Once your clay is pliable, take the black clay and gently push it into the white clay. Continue to knead the two clays together, making sure not to over knead so it turns grey. You want there to be distinct black spots.
Next, take your rolling pin and roll out your clay into a rectangle shape. You can use a plastic knife to cut off any excess clay and to make the lines straight – make sure to save it for the base.
Take the two ends of the rectangle and line them up and then gently smooth the two edges together by pushing the clay from one end onto the other in one direction.
Roll out your scraps to make the base of your vase. To measure the base, put your vase circle on top and then, using a knife, cut around it.
Secure the base bottom to the vase using the same technique described in step 4.
Pop your vase in the oven at 275º on a piece of parchment paper. Bake for quite some time. You are supposed to bake your vase for 15 minutes per 1/4 inch thickness. My vase was pretty thick so this took about an hour. I just kept checking it every 15 minutes to make sure it wasn’t burning.
Put some flowers or a plant in your pretty vase and you are all set!

Marble away my friends, marble away! Let us know in the comments below if you end up making this DIY! And if you are looking for more home decor type DIYs be sure to check out our Pinterest!

Sculpey Pilgrim Hat Wine Stoppers

November 16, 2016Leave a comment

It’s finally starting to look like fall in Boston, just in time for Thanksgiving! Wait… how is it already Thanksgiving? Is it just me? I feel like this year is seriously flying by… To decorate the thanksgiving table, we made these sculpey pilgrim hat wine stoppers! Or, if you don’t drink wine, you can cork whatever you want with them like olive oil!

Before we get to the DIY, I’m going to tell you my thanksgiving story. Here it goes. A bunch of years ago, my parents met at thanksgiving because my mom’s best friend and my dad’s best friend were dating. In my head it’s a lot longer of a story than that…

And I’m so thankful my parents met each other, not only because it means that I’m here, but because they love each other so much and they are always so endlessly supportive. So every year when we go around the thanksgiving table and talk about what we are all thankful for, I always feel obligated to say, “well I’m thankful for my parents, so I’m thankful for thanksgiving…” And as a kid it always felt silly, like I had to say that and wasn’t allowed to think of anything else. But now, as I get older, the more I don’t care because at the top of my list is always that I’m thankful for my parents because I’m so lucky to have such an incredible family.

This is getting way soppier than I had intended when I sat down to start writing! Besides family and friends, and food… what’s the next best part of thanksgiving? Did you say drinking wine with family and friends and food? Good. That’s what I thought. In honor of wine, we decided to make these cute pilgrim hat wine stoppers. They would make the perfect gift with a bottle of wine as a guest or make them for your own table at home. If you’re having thanksgiving with fellow crafty people, I’d suggest just making a few sculpey pilgrim hats and bringing your glue gun and gluing them to the corks of each wine bottle you open through the night. Or just make them at home before you get there.. whatever floats your boat.

Here’s what you need to make the sculpey pilgrim hat wine stoppers:

Sculpey – black, white, yellow (if you don’t have colors, you can always paint white sculpey when it’s dry)
Cork wine stoppers – you can either buy these from the craft store, or just use the cork of bottles you open, up to you!
A hot glue gun and glue
Parchment paper

It couldn’t be easier to make these cute wine stoppers, so you literally have no excuses this time! Here’s how to make them:

Lay out your parchment paper on a surface you can work on.
Roll a clump of sculpey into a ball – this will be the body of the hat, so use as big of a piece as you want the hat to be. Make sure it is at least as big as the cork wine stopper, but we thought it looked nicer if it was even bigger (about an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half in diameter).
Start shaping your ball into a cone shape with a flat top and bottom. We did this by rolling it at an angle on the parchment paper on the table and pressing the top and the bottom flat. Keep working at it until it looks hat shaped! (See photo below).
Grab a new piece of black – about an inch or so – and roll it into a ball and press it flat into a pancake. This will be the brim of the hat. Once it’s in the shape of the pancake, lay the body of the hat on top of it and see if it looks ok, if it’s too big or small, add or take away clay and redo this step. Once it’s just right, firmly press the body and the brim of the hat together so they stick well.
Roll the white out into a snake and press it flat. This will be the trim between the brim and the body of the hat. You can decide how thick you want it to be. Wrap it around the hat.
Roll the yellow into a thinner snake but don’t press it flat! carefully make a small rectangle to place on the white rim.
Once your sculpey hat is assembled, bake it according to the package instructions – Mine said to bake at 275 F for 15 minutes per 1/4 inch, so mine was in there about 30 or 40 minutes, checking every 10 minutes after the first 20 minutes. I baked it on a baking sheet lined with parchment.
Once your sculpey is baked and cooled, warm up your hot glue gun and glue the hat to your cork! Now you’re ready to cork some wine bottles with your pilgrim hat wine stoppers!

I love playing with sculpey! Let us know in the comments if you have other sculpey crafts we should do! Or if you have other wine stopper ideas… Also, if you like any of the other table decorations in the first picture, keep checking back here because we’re doing a whole thanksgiving table DIY series!

Halloween Sculpey Drink Stirrers

October 27, 2016October 26, 20162 Comments

Celebrate Halloween in style with these fun and festive Sculpey drink stirrers. Halloween is right around the corner people! If you are planning on drinking or serving drinks at your Halloween party have no fear because you still have time to make these silly and simple drink stirrers.

We are all about the easy and inexpensive crafts over here on Popcorn & Chocolate. So we’ve got all you last minute Halloweeners covered. If you are in the 21+ category, you can read on to learn how to make these halloween themed drink stirrers, and if you are not 21, maybe keep it to mocktails this year. For some fun for all ages, check out our Halloween bunting flags we made last year. Better yet, grab your friends invite them over to have a few spooky cocktails with these drink stirrers while you all make some bunting flags! That sounds like my kind of party 😉

In reality I’ll be home handing out candy to children hoping they don’t trip over the 10 pumpkins we all carved. We go a little pumpkin carving crazy over here. This year was no exception. Rose came over to my house and we carved 3 pumpkins each and then I kept on carving more when she left… between my mom, Rose, and I, we’ve got a total of 10 pumpkins. I think that’s some sort of record for us.

Better celebrate with a nice stiff drink! Speaking of drinks – are you ready to learn how to make these sculpted drink stirrers yet?? Keep reading to find out how to make these and for a list of some spooky halloween cocktails to stir up with your new drink stirrers!

Materials:

Sculpey
Drink stirrers
Hot glue
A drink to put them in

Instructions:

1.Start with a small chunk (about the size of a quarter) of whatever color Sculpey you want – I’ll be showing you the jack-o-lantern so I started with orange Sculpey.

2. Roll the Sculpey into a ball.

3. Taking the drink stirrer press it firmly into the Sculpey ball and twirl it around a little bit to loosen out the hole. Take the drink stirrer out.

4. Take some black Sculpey and roll out a thin piece to make the eyes and mouth. I used a tiny knife to cut small triangles for the eyes and a toothy mouth shape. Press these firmly onto the orange Sculpey ball.

5. Bake the Sculpey according to your package instructions (I believe it is usually 275°F per 1/4 inch thickness – since the ball was pretty thick this took about 30-40 minutes). Let cool.

6. Once the Sculpey is baked and cooled, take your hot glue gun and dab a bit of glue onto the tip of the drink stirrer and then put the Sculpey ball where you just dabbed. For some of them, we didn’t make our hole big enough so we had to use the flat end of the drink stirrer instead of the rounded ball end, which is fine, but it looks better the other way around. DO NOT FORCE the Sculpey onto the drink stirrer if it does not fit – it will break (my broken bone can attest to that).

7. Pop in your cocktail and stir away!

That’s another simple and easy (and fun!) Halloween craft for all you last minute decorators. We got you covered.

And here are some of our favorite halloween themed cocktails that you can put your new drink stirrer in!

Hallowine Sangria from The Seasoned Mom
Monster Mash from Freut Cake
Hocus Pocus from The Foodie Affair
Ginger Bourbon Cider from Hungry Girl por Vida
Dirt Cup Vodka from CGM Foodie Fridays

We hope you all have a wonderful and safe Halloween! Let us know in the comments below what you are doing this Halloween!

You can always just pin it for next year too 😉

Jewelry Trinket Dish | Popcorn & Chocolate

DIY Astrological Sign Trinket Dish

April 28, 20164 Comments

Have you ever been shopping and pick something up and look at the price tag and then gently set it back down and walk away because no way Jose? Most often the item doesn’t look like it should be that price to begin with, and usually if that item is some home decor thing I think to myself I can make that.. and probably for only a couple of bucks. Welp, this here is one of such things.

Rose and I were casually perusing Antrhopologie, as you do, and saw these super cute astrological sign trinket dishes. We both really liked them and wanted to figure out a (less expensive) way to make them at home.

After rummaging through our craft supplies and making a general mess of our apartment we found some sculpey leftover from who knows what project. And after about an hour of kneading it, as it was very old and dried out, we were able to start a rolling!

Supplies:

Air drying clay
Acrylic paint
Paint brush

Instructions:
First we rolled out the clay with our hands, trying to make sure to get an even thickness. Then we used a round bowl and pressed it into the clay to get a circle. Once the dish was cut out, we plumped up the edges a bit by pinching around the sides gently. Next we used a small pokey tool (a sharpened pencil would work too or the back of a paint brush) to poke stars (dots) into the clay and connected them with a gentle line. We suggest you practice your design a couple of times on paper first as it was harder to center and even out in the clay (except for Aries – that one needs minimal practice, sorry Rose).

Once your design is to your liking, pop it in the oven to bake. Make sure to follow the instructions on the clay packaging, but I believe you bake at 275 for 15 minutes per 1/4 inch thickness. These guys wound up taking a bit of time, so be patient. Once out of the oven, make sure the dish is completely cool before you start painting. Start by painting the inside (blue for us) first, this took us several coats to get the desired opaqueness we wanted. Once the inside coat is finished and dry you can move onto painting the rim and the astrological sign. For this we used a smaller paintbrush, and for the stars we dipped the end of the paintbrush into the gold and then dipped that into the tiny hole. We tried to mimic the anthro version of this dish by using blue and gold, but feel free to paint yours whatever color strikes your fancy! We used this paint.

There you have it – an easy DIY that totally looks just like the real thing. A perfect gift to give to your friend for their birthday. Let us know in the comments below if you have ever seen something in a store and thought, I can definitely make that myself. Crafters unite! Also, do you think your astrological sign fits you?

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Tag: sculpey

Marbled Clay Vase: Make it in under 10 minutes!

If you love marble and simple projects then try making this marbled clay vase! Scroll down to find the full tutorial.

Materials:

Instructions:

Like this:

Sculpey Pilgrim Hat Wine Stoppers

Here’s what you need to make the sculpey pilgrim hat wine stoppers:

It couldn’t be easier to make these cute wine stoppers, so you literally have no excuses this time! Here’s how to make them:

Like this:

Halloween Sculpey Drink Stirrers

Materials:

Instructions:

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DIY Astrological Sign Trinket Dish

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If you love marble and simple projects then try making this marbled clay vase! Scroll down to find the full tutorial.

Materials:

Instructions:

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Like this:

Here’s what you need to make the sculpey pilgrim hat wine stoppers:

It couldn’t be easier to make these cute wine stoppers, so you literally have no excuses this time! Here’s how to make them:

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Like this:

Materials:

Instructions:

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