I wanted to blog about a natural craft for earth day and discovered clay impressions of plants and leaves and flowers. What a great idea! The only problem is that its just the very beginning of spring and the garden is ugly. Except for a few crocuses there is nothing nice around my home. I popped into the florist shop (Regency Florists) nearby and asked if they had any flower scraps like a bit of fern that we could use for this craft project. The lovely young lady made a little bouquet of scraps for free! How lovely is that! We are going to take her one of these lovely creations as a thank you gift.
Supplies
So you will need CLAY and a very smooth surface to work on. If you have a clear bit of plastic table cloth or a very smooth kitchen cutting board-either will work. You also need some flowers or plants, a rolling pin or water bottle that has smooth sides. Later when the clay is dry you may want to use some craft paint to add the green or flower color. Also if you want to turn it into a mobile or wind chimes you might need a chopstick or skewer to poke a hole in it.
Our clay is from the dollar store craft aisle. We just slice off chunks and made different shapes with it. Then we rolled it flat. Next we place a bit of plant or flower onto the clay and rolled over it gently with a smooth water bottle. Pull the plant off the clay and admire the details now imprinted in the clay. If you want to add a hole-this is the time to grab your kebab skewer or chopstick.
Allow the clay to dry overnight. It should feel completely dry before you paint it. I just used regular craft paint.
This would be a lovely gift from a child to a teacher or grandparent. Its a great craft for all ages though. I highly recommend for adults to give it a try. Its very therapeutic! This project has a lot of possibilities so let your imagine go wild. Find things around the house with interesting textures to imprint the clay.
Have fun!
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This is a beautiful idea! I’m definitely going to try this with my kids. What a great idea to ask for scraps. I would have never thought of that. Thanks for this idea!
Thank you! We will have to try again in the summer with plants and flowers from our garden…maybe autumn leaves also. I was really appreciative of their gesture to give me their discards so we could try the project a bit early in the season.
Thanks for including me in your spring craft round up!
Hiii, i would like to do this work with my students. How long time the clay takes to get dry?
Alessandra
It will take several hours to dry. I would leave it until the next day.
do you have to use real flowers? or can fake flowers be used?
You could probably use artificial flowers. I wanted to show and appreciate the delicate natural beauty of the petals and stems.
where can I find clay?
The clay in this post was from my dollar store in the craft section. At the craft store (Michaels) there is a lot of variety in the clay you can purchase but it is more expensive.