We Make Collective Relaunch Day 6 | DIY clay rope bud vases

I hope you’re all having a great weekend! I’m going to keep this brief as I’m just getting home from a fabulous day meeting new and old blogger friends. But we couldn’t miss out on sharing our sixth We Make Collective Relaunch freebie! This one comes from Steph over at Make & Tell. Take it away Steph!

I’ve always adored ceramic pieces that have been sculpted to look as though they’re made from a different material like paper, rope or lace. If I could, I’d fill my house with pottery versions of disposable cups, paper bags and lace doilies… I just love that look!

So when I found out that the material in this month’s kit was going to be polymer clay, I just knew I had to try my hand at making something that wasn’t obviously ‘ceramic’ at first glance.

And just as I was thinking that, my mind drifted back to being in primary school and having our teacher show us how to coil pieces of clay to create ‘ropes’ that we then wove into baskets. I figured if 8 year old me could do that, then 33 year old me could manage the same feat with a much better outcome. And the rest, as they say, is history!

Materials

• We Make Collective clay kit (you’ll need to pick out 2 clay colours for this project)
• Glass votives or small glasses
• Petroleum jelly

Step 1
Get one colour of clay and break it into two equal halves. Then roll each piece into a long, thin sausage.

Step 2
Twist the two thin sausages of clay together to form a rope. Repeat Steps 1 and 2 with a second colour of clay so you have two ropes.

Step 3
Grease the outside of your votive or glass with petroleum jelly.

Step 4
Start winding one of your ropes into a coil.

Step 5
Once the coil is roughly as big as the base of your glass or votive, put the votive on top of the coil and start winding the rope up around the sides. Keep winding until you’ve run out that colour of clay ‘rope’.

Step 6
Get your other clay ‘rope’ and attach it to the first rope by pinching the two lightly together. Then wind the second rope around the votive until you reach the top.

Step 7

If your votive or glass isn’t oven-proof, slowly ease it out of the clay before baking the clay in the oven.

Step 8

Once the clay has been baked, while it’s still warm, ease the votive back into your rope creation (make sure you’ve cleaned all the petroleum jelly off the votive first!). Doing this will ensure the clay bud vase still fits around your votive once its cooled.

If your votive or glass is oven-proof, then you won’t have to worry about these last two steps – simply bake the clay in the oven with the votive still inside.

Once your clay has baked and cooled completely, fill the votive with water and find some pretty flowers to fill your newly made bud vases!