I Rented a Pottery Wheel for a Week, and It Did Not Go as I'd Expected

 For one, I thought I'd get the hang of the pottery wheel right away, or at least after a few tries.

Or maybe after watching a few YouTube videos with titles like "How to Center Clay on the Pottery Wheel."

Or possibly after watching a few more YouTube videos with titles like "Can't Center Your Clay on the Pottery Wheel? Watch This Video and You'll Definitely Get It!"

Yeah... no. I'm a big proponent of autodidacticism, but I just could not seem to get the knack of using that dang pottery wheel. Matt and Will also tried a couple of times--

--but that pottery wheel was not about to give up its secrets to any of us. 

Ah, well... we could still hand-build.

Which leads me to another misconception: Okay, fine, I did not poll the entire family before I committed to renting us a pottery wheel plus supplies for a week, but to be fair, WHO WOULD NOT BE INTERESTED IN SPENDING A WEEK GOOFING AROUND WITH CLAY?    

Yeah, my family. Would not. Be. Interested. In. That. 

Will might have been more interested if she'd gotten the hang of the wheel, but are these really the same babies who used to sit for hours and make entire dinner sets out of air-dry clay? I don't even think Syd consented to look at the clay setup for the entire week it lived in our front hallway, and she's the kid who once upon a time spent most of a week making an elaborate headband created from a zillion individually sculpted polymer clay flowers as a birthday gift for a kid she barely knew!

We're just going to call this the week that I played Arctic Monkeys really loud on constant repeat and felt sorry for myself while hand-building weird things out of clay.

Originally, my main thought was, "Shit! I paid $70 for this! I'm going to get my money's worth if it kills me!" But you know what? I got WAY more into hand-building weird things out of clay than I thought I would! I generally always had an idea or two of something that I wanted to make, and with the Arctic Monkeys blaring, the Thanksgiving vacation enabling me to take a break from homeschooling/supervising online schooling, and the rest of my family quietly pretending that the entire front hallway didn't exist, I had plenty of time to get on with it:

I made a lot of little pots that inexplicably have tentacles--

--and a bunch of plant markers that I got all my scrapbooking stamps dirty labeling--

...and a bunch of other stuff. Like, a BUNCH:

I've got Christmas ornaments and gift tags and coasters and phases of the moon hangings, and raincloud hangings and soap dishes and little magnets...

...and little pots with tentacles!

I LOVE them.

I love my plant markers, too, and now I can stop stupidly confusing my lavender and rosemary plants:

And now I'm left with lots of fun things to paint, to add twine and hangers to, to glue magnets on, and to give away or sell or add to my cluttered house's cluttered decor.

I can't say that I'm not always bummed whenever my cool idea for how everyone else in my family should spend their time doesn't pan out (you'd think that I'd therefore stop trying to plan out how everyone in my family should spend their time, but I swear my ideas are always super cool!), and I can't say that I'm not VERY much over this reality in which 2020 as a whole is pretty much just one super-sized class session in which the lesson reads, "Expectations are plans for future disappointments," but now I can also say the following things:

I enjoy hand-building things out of clay.

I am capable of adding tentacles to anything.

I have all of my scissors, and all of my sturdy glues, and all of my favorite pens nicely organized.

If required, I can entertain myself endlessly with the Artic Monkeys, a knife and a rolling pin, and 20 pounds of mud.

How to Make Stamped Clay Seed Bombs

I originally published this tutorial on Crafting a Green World.

I used to think that seed bombs do not work, full stop.

And to be fair, I had a good reason for my opinion, because most of the seed bomb tutorials that you see online just do NOT work! Here's why:

• If the seed bomb is too big, it's not going to be able to dissolve in good time and release the seeds.
• If the seed bomb recipe calls for too much liquid, the seeds will germinate prematurely and then die.
• If the seed bomb recipe calls for too many seeds, they'll crowd each other out before they can grow.
• If the seed bomb gets tossed out at anything other than JUST the right time, it won't get the proper amount of rainfall required to dissolve the bomb and nurture the seeds.

When there are so many things wrong with so many of the seed bomb tutorials that you see, it's easy to think that the whole concept is a bad one.

But done properly, and distributed carefully, seed bombs CAN work.

Here's what you'll need to do it right.

Ingredients & Supplies

• Air dry clay. I'd suggest something non-pigmented and natural-looking, not something like Model Magic, which is super fun and my kids play with it but I have NO idea what it's made of. If you don't know what it's made of, you certainly don't want it in your garden!
• Seed starting mix or other potting soil. Your favorite seed starting mix will work well here, but any kind of nutritious potting soil will do.  And again, avoid potting soils with "moisture retention beads" or "water crystals" included; those are just fun names for the same kind of polymer that's used in disposable diapers. You don't want that in your garden, either!
• Native seed mix. Not all greenhouses are ethical providers of native seeds, so check with your local native plant society before you buy a packet. Better yet, save your own seeds from your favorite native plants and use those.
• Small stamp. A regular scrapbooking stamp is exactly what you need. Scrapbooking used to be big business, so you should be able to find any stamp design you can dream of.

Directions

1. Get your hands dirty

Pinch off an amount of clay the size of a large marble--remember that the best seed bomb is a SMALL seed bomb, so don't overdo it.

2. Roll the clay into a ball between the palms of your hands

Might as well go ahead and get a little dirtier! Use the tip of a finger to make an indentation in the clay ball, and fill the indentation with as much potting soil or seed starting mix as will fit.

3. Add the seeds

Be very stingy with the number of seeds that you put in your seed bomb because you don't want them to crowd each other out of existence. Three to four seeds is plenty!

4. Seal the potting soil and seeds inside the bomb

Pull the sides of the seed bomb over the top to seal in the potting soil and seeds, then roll it around your palms again to make it back into a nice, smooth sphere.

5. Stamp the top of the seed bomb

Press hard with the stamp; you'll slightly flatten the seed bomb, but will make your stamped impression stand out nicely.

6. Let air dry

Let the seed bombs air dry for at least as long as the package of air-dry clay instructs. Thanks to the potting soil center, the seed bomb might take even longer to dry.

When the seed bombs are dry, you can store them in the same cool, dry, dark spot where you store the rest of your garden seeds. To use them, toss them onto the ground whenever the growing conditions outside match the seed packet's specifications AND there's a lot of rain in the forecast for the next week or so.

Another option is to simply press a seed bomb down into the dirt in your garden or a flowerpot and water regularly. I planted a seed bomb in a pot in my windowsill just for fun (I don't think the native plants will last inside all winter, but it's worth the experiment), and look how cute my little seedling babies are, growing out from under the safety net of their seed bomb!

My watering can didn't exactly mimic the right rainfall conditions to properly dissolve the clay exterior of the seed bomb, but even so, it was enough to get a couple of sturdy little seeds germinated and growing happily.

Imagine how happy they'll be when I toss them around the garden!

The Kid Made Polymer Clay Flowers

Here's the very first thing that Syd ever made from polymer clay, back when she was all of four years old:

And here's the most recent:

Unless we're just absolutely out of time the girls make handmade gifts for all of their gift-giving occasions, and the particular occasion that inspired these delicate little polymer clay flowers was the birthday party of a friend from Syd's ballet classes. It's an interesting (and useful!) challenge to craft the perfect gift for a friend that one doesn't already know very well, and I was more than a little surprised, honestly, that Syd didn't automatically choose to make the child something ballet-themed.

But if there's one thing that you must know about Syd, it's that she always has A Vision. She envisioned embellishing a headband with a bouquet of polymer clay flowers, and that's just what she did!

Even if it meant crafting over a dozen tiny, delicate, detailed polymer clay flowers by hand:

I love this one the best. See how she used her own fingerprints as embellishments?

Syd took the following photos of her completed headband (and unfortunately she is not yet as interested in photography as she is the other arts, and it shows...), so you can see that the details did not stop with the bouquet. She added a braided length of waxed cord, embellished with beads, that dangles from the bouquet--

--and on the opposite end, a nice, big bumblebee!

Here the headband is in all its glory (and with all the hot glue strings tidied out of the way):

It certainly makes all the time I spent organizing her polymer clay supplies for her well worth it!

P.S. Syd doesn't use tutorials for her creations, but I do, and I have an entire Crafting: Clay Pinboard where I keep my inspiration.

How I Organized Our Polymer Clay (And Prismacolor Pencils!)

Syd is my crafting soulmate. She loves working with her hands even more than I do, and she's got the added benefit of some serious artistic talent to work with.

She's also got her fingers in a lot of crafting pies! Here's what I've seen her engaged in, just in July so far: making digital art, creating endless batches of original slime recipes, sketching, repainting Monster High dolls, baking and decorating cupcakes and homemade ice cream sandwiches, and sculpting with polymer clay, and that doesn't even count the crafts that she and I have done together, or what she's done at the pick-up art classes that I've been taking her to.

Art-making is also mess-making, at least here in our home, so one of my major projects this summer is to organize and store some of the most popular and commonly-used tools and supplies. I want our playroom table and floor (and my study table and floor, and the family room table and floor!) back, and I want everything that Syd uses most to be in her space, the playroom, because although she always has access to our family storage spaces, she tends to leave them looking like a crafting hurricane swept through and she manages to thoroughly disappear whenever I come looking for her to tidy up.

I've got a couple of big pegboards in progress that I'm using to organize and store most of these craft supplies, but even the categories themselves, just the slime supplies, for instance, or just the Perler bead supplies, need to be better organized so that we can use them better and store them more neatly.

I don't have slime or Perler beads completely under control yet, but I HAVE conquered polymer clay and Prismacolor pencils!

For polymer clay organizing, I used this YouTube video as my inspiration:



I took all of the old, grody, unsorted clay that's all mixed up together, put it into like batches, and ran each batch through my pasta machine umpteen times--

See all that grody clay in the bin back there? That's what I started with!

--until it came out pretty and nice and new! All the clay stored in the bin below started out grody and mixed up, and now it's clean and tidy and Syd has already been into it:

All of our polymer clay and our few clay tools fit easily into two of these exact plastic organizers. Taking another crafter's advice, I covered the bottom of each organizer with waxed paper to keep the clay from reacting with the plastic. Each organizer has a plastic hanging loop at one end, so I can hang it on our giant pegboard, and with the addition of a shelf to set the pasta machine on, that will be the polymer clay all stored and organized!

I might add another, smaller plastic bin to hold polymer clay that's been sculpted but not yet baked, as it's kind of killing my soul to keep turning on the oven so that the kids can bake, like, two things. I'm imagining, instead, storing them and baking them in batches, kind of like a kiln-firing. Maybe? We'll see...

Prismacolor colored pencils were a lot simpler to organize, even though there's a lot more of them. Our big family set of colored pencils now lives in this big, 72-pencil colored pencil roll:

I even put all the pencils in rainbow order so that the kids can easily find the color that they want, and since every space is filled, it *should* be obvious where each pencil goes back. This pencil roll now lives in a basket on the pegboard.

Will has her own personal set of Prismacolor pencils that stay in their tin and live wherever she wants them, and each kid has her own personal small set of Prismacolor watercolor pencils that stay in their tins in their work trays and that they use with their schoolwork (they work fine as regular colored pencils, too!). Syd uses this larger family set of Prismacolor watercolor pencils--

--on the Monster High dolls that she alters, so those, too, will likely live on the pegboard. Syd also informed me that she's used up the black in both this set and her own personal set, so I guess I'll be doing a little back-to-school shopping this week.

We school year-round, and thus don't really have a particular day that feels like the beginning of a school year. Nevertheless, summer, when the kids are often gone for their various camps, does feel like more of a break, and it feels especially nice to be able to spend the time that they're away refreshing and renewing things for them, sharpening their pencils and sorting their supplies, making things look different and temptingly fun. 

Kind of like walking into a familiar classroom for a new school year, don't you think?

Tutorial: How to Cover Test Tubes with Polymer Clay

These test tubes covered with polymer clay didn't turn out perfectly, but they did well enough that I know what to do differently next time, and they're super cute.

You will need:

• glass test tubes. I have quite a collection for our homeschool, although they often find themselves diverted to other uses, often to propagate our wandering jews and lavender (random aside: I took a half-dozen cuttings from my lavender plants this fall to propagate, and for the first time ever, all six failed! I can't imagine what I did wrong. Had the plants already gone dormant, do you think, and that caused it? Were the cuttings that I took too woody? Is it possible to have too much rooting hormone on a cutting? If you have any insight, please let me know!)
• Sculpey. My kids both LOVE super-soft polymer clay, and we've had a lot of luck with Sculpey. In fact, Syd has requested that I again purchase this exact set the next time I'm in a craft store and have a coupon burning a hole in my pocket. I will, but first I'm going to make her use the luster dust and food flavoring that I've already bought her. Y'all, my kid might be a craft supplies hoarder.
• Sculpey tools. You can get by with an x-acto knife and a toothpick, although over the year or so that the kids have gotten into Sculpey, I've collected a few tools recommended for working with polymer clay--this cutting set, some dental picks, a plastic rolling pin, etc.
• glaze. This is optional, but it really does make a world of difference in the look of your finished piece, and it's supposed to strengthen it some, too.

*I use Amazon Affiliates for these product links, which means that I get a small commission from purchases made through clicking them. I use my Affiliate commissions to buy kid stuff, craft supplies, and fencing lessons!*

1. Clean and dry the outside of your test tube, so that the polymer clay will adhere well. Use rubbing alcohol or vinegar, although if you use alcohol, make sure that you dry it completely, as rubbing alcohol will dissolve the polymer clay.

2. Roll out a very thin sheet of clay, then wrap it around the test tube. Cut off the excess, then use your fingers to smooth the clay and rub away the seams.

3. Use more clay to embellish the clay-covered test tube. Have fun with it!

I really like how Syd sculpted a flat bottom as a stand for her test tube. It worked perfectly!

4. Bake the clay-covered test tube. Follow the instructions on the package of clay. Don't worry about the test tube--it's made to be heated!

5. Let cool, then glaze. Both of the mistakes that I made with this project came after the clay was heated and then cooled. With Syd's creation, I cracked the top of her test tube by trying to force a clay stopper that she'd made onto the test tube. I guess the clay expands a small bit when it's baked? Lesson: if you want a stopper, cut down a wine cork. With my creation, I'd sculpted a groove around the rim of the test tube to make a place to put a wire noose, so that I can hang it. Again, I used too much force twisting the wire tight, and I cracked off the clay above that groove. Lesson: be SUPER gentle with the finished project. Clay is brittle! Hemp twine would have been a better choice.

I don't totally know what to do with these pretty test tubes. Syd is using hers as a bud vase, and right now I've got mine hanging from my desk lamp, as it's the perfect size to hold the black pen that I like to use for check writing and envelope addressing, but I'm very, very open to more ideas for how to use them, if you've got any!

The next thing that I want to make is this octopus tentacle, although I want to glue the tentacle to the cork, glue the cork to the bottle, add an eye pin, and wear it as a pendant. I wonder if it would look even more awesome if I poured resin around the tentacle, as well?

P.S. A message from Syd: "Hello. My name is Sydney. I'm a Girl Scout. Do you like cookies? So do I! You can buy some Girl Scout cookies for you, your friends, and family by asking my Mom for my Digital Cookie Shop link. This year, there is a new cookie called S'mores. It is a graham cracker cookie with marshmallow filling and chocolate. It is all-natural ingredients. If you would like to donate that cookie or the seven other types we sell to Operation Cookie Drop, which donates those cookies to the soldiers, click this link (Mom note: Every $4 donation buys one box of Girl Scout cookies for active and retired American soldiers, and patients in military hospitals)."

Additional Mom Note: Throughout Girl Scout cookie season, I'll be offering the bottom of each blog post to my kids to craft a sales pitch. They don't call Girl Scout cookies the world's largest girl-led business for nothing! Especially after last year, when the girls in my troop got to experience what amazing things they could do with their cookie profits (more on that in a future cookie pitch, I'm sure), they are on fire this year. They've got big goals, they know exactly what they want to do with their profits, and my challenge is to continually find opportunities for them to stretch their marketing, budgeting, goal-setting, communication, visual design, and math abilities. Just as I did in the past two years, I'm looking forward to watching them visibly mature in so many different ways in the next two months.