Some crafts should be attempted just for the pure satisfaction and joy of creating something from scratch. This project is such. Instead of the usual decorating say a ceramic/glass vase I chose to make this nail polish drippy planter with clay from scratch. Who knows you might like this project so much that you might as well take an extra effort and have your planter baked and glazed. I so totally wished I could do that (I may have to join a ceramic class now).
Materials:
- Air-dry clay 2 lbs
- Nail polish
- E-6000 glue
- Vase
- Sanding paper
- Dowel
- Wax paper
- X-acto knife
Steps:
1. Roll out the entire rectangle clay. Stretch it out so that it can cover the entire surface of the vase that we will use as mold.
2. Cover your vase with baking paper and place it down on to your newly shaped clay. Measure and trim off excess clay with your sharp x-acto knife. Roll the rest into a ball and keep it aside as we need to to make the base and the legs out of it.
3. Roll out a nice circle out of your leftover clay and cut the edges slightly for better adherence to the top that we made earlier. Place the top of the planter to the base and trim off excess
4. With your wet hands join the cylinder to the circular base by applying pressure. When all is done let the vase sit in a place for about an hour and then remove it by wriggling.
5. Next, make four small cylinder legs with the leftover clay. Let it air-dry for 24-48 hours.
6. Smoothen the rough surface and the rim of the planter with a sanding paper. Wipe it with a damp cloth to remove any leftover dust.
7. Place your planter over a protective area and begin to drip nail polish color of your choice from the rim of the planter. Wait for an hour or two for the nail polish to dry before arriving to the next step
8. Glue down the four legs with a generous amount of E-6000 glue. Keep the planter aside to cure for at least 4 hrs.
Now, many have asked how to drain the watar out of the planter or if the container would turn into a pile of mush. To that, I say not necessarily my friend. The trick here is to line the container with a plastic bag cut to its size. Layer the base with an inch of pebbles and that would work just fine for a species like cactus as they usually don’t need much water anyways.
You can also wish to skip the four legs. I was going for a subtle look here but you could totally use some more of the nail polish for a more colorful effect. Why stop there? Not shown but you can totally use 2-4 layers of drips. Just make sure that you let each layer dry in between. Come spring, this project would make for a perfect weekend activity with kids.
