Today is the last day of school in 2015, and my kids are proudly bringing handmade gifts to their teachers, along with hand written thank you cards. I think that giving a hand-made gift is a wonderful way for a child to show appreciation to their teachers, and I know that I am always on the lookout for simple DIY gifts kids can make. These Sculpey clay creations are inspired by my own childhood crafting. My kids are very into polymer clay crafting right now, and so I’ve invested in a few tools that have brought their crafting to a new level.
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DIY Gifts Kids Can Make
For this crafting project, I added a few materials to our Sculpey clay supplies:
- Sculpey flowers and leaves flexible clay mold
- Three more acrylic rollers, so that each child could have their own.
- Sculpey metal shape cutters
- Screw eyes pin findings – perfect for making necklace and bracelet charms, and you can also use them to hang ornaments on the tree.
Nine-year-old Emma is very into charms at the moment, so she made the charms pictured above. I particularly like the rainbow ones, which she learned how to make after reading the Sculpey Beginner’s Guide to Polymer Clay (you can find more polymer clay books we like in this post.) Emma really likes the metal shape cutters, and you can see how she used several to make these charms. Eight-year-old Johnny used the Sculpey flowers and leaves flexible clay mold to make the holly-inspired ornament.
Six-year-old Lily made this Christmas tree. She used the rectangular metal shape cutter to make the trunk of the tree, and shaped the rest by hand.
Lily made some more snowmen, using glass beads for eyes this time. She and Johnny also made some charms, inspired by Emma:
Remember, Sculpey clay is designed for serious artists. It isn’t a toy. Kids should only use this under supervision, and please make sure they wash their hands before and after playing!
What crafts are your kids loving lately? Do you have any DIY gifts kids can make for us to try?
MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
These are such a great handmade gift. We went with cookies this year!
Those charms are really incredible!! I’m quite sure the gift recipient will love them! Do you have to bake the Sculpy Clay to get that color?
It starts off that color and stays true to color throughout the baking process.
Emma’s rainbow charms look amazing – I immediately had “layers of Earth” association with them :)
They turned out great. I love the geode looking one.
I love that one, too! There is another cool one that they used translucent clay with blue to create a geode, but I didn’t take a picture of it and now it has been given away. Next time.
These turned out beautifully!
Thanks, Elisa! I enjoyed watching the kids make them.