DIY Clay Cacti Vase with Pirouline Tins

Hey everyone, Happy Tuesday! Today I’m sharing this months Pirouline project. If you’re new here, I post a recycled Pirouline tin craft every month! You can find them all here.

I created this project with my Mom and Sister. Taylor (my sister) had seen some cactus looking clay pots on pinterest. Her home is decorated in a desert/tribal themed, so we decided to restyle some pirouline tins to look like Cactus.

This months project was epic. The first time we did it was a complete failure. It didn’t start out that way. We molded the clay around the tins, and set them out to dry. The problem? When they dried, the clay came completely off of the tins in pieces.

We decided it was just the type of clay we used (cheap kids air dry clay). So, we went and found this Model Air dry clay by Polyform and it worked much better.

Supplies: Model Air Clay by Polyform, Pirouline Tins, Spray Paint, Sand Paper, Copper Paint, Glaze medium

1.. Start by sanding the outsides of your pirouline tins. This will just make it slightly more textured so that the clay has something to hold on to.

2. Take a blob of clay, use your fingers or a rolling pin to stretch it out a bit and wrap it around your tin, working it and smoothing it until you have your tin covered.

The trick is to not make it too thin (it will crack) but not too thick either.

3. Take a small amount of clay and roll it out into a worm. Place it along the edge of one side of your tin, pressing it down so that the clay worm sticks to the clay tin.
4. Pinch the top edge of your worm, so that it has little bumps.

5. Repeat, making more clay “worms”, placing them around your tin and pinching them.

6. Make one more clay worm. Form the one into a ring and press it down on to the top of your tin, giving it a finished look and covering up any rough edges.

Let the clay dry completely.

7. Grab your spray paint and give it 1-3 coats, depending on how much you need! I used yellow and green for mine because I wanted them very cactus like.

8. To give your clay tin a glazed look, mix a small amount of copper paint with a gloss varnish medium and brush it on over top of your spray paint. This just gives it a coppery metallic look.

Once you figure out the right clay to use, these are pretty easy to make! What awesome home decor, right? You can use it as a vase, a planter, or even just tins to hold pencils, pens, etc.

My Travel Album

Project Life August

2 COMMENTS

Newdriver01
October 27, 2014 at 5:38 pm
Was the first clay you used from crayola? Those are awesome!
Monica Sai
October 28, 2014 at 4:38 am
About the model air clay, is it polymer based?