Beaded Bowl

This was originally posted on my blog Ordinary Life Magic.  Another pretty project to chase away the winter blues!

We made a beaded bowl today.

We're all about spring pretties in these last (let's hope) cold and gray days of winter.

First we rolled out a 1/2 inch or so thick bit of air-dry clay.

We cut it with a flower cookie cutter, then picked it up and placed it on a piece of plastic, and rolled it out just a bit more, so it would be bigger.


We placed it over a rounded bowl, and put it in the oven on the lowest setting for an hour or a little longer.


When it was somewhat firm, we took it out of the oven, and carefully pried it off of the mold.

We painted our bowl with acrylic paint, and let that dry for a little while.

I got out some small, malleable wire and a needle, and after poking a hole with the needle, I set the wire through the hole.
(Very carefully - the clay isn't dry yet, to allow for easy beading.)

I wrapped the end around the edge of the bowl, and ran the first beads thorough the doubled wire.


We wanted ours not uniform, but sort of breezy and winding, so we didn't string up the beads tightly, but loosely.

We made irregular holes with the needle, and just looped our beads around as we liked.

When we got to the end, we wound the wire around where it began.

Now we just need to let our bowl finish drying for a couple of days!


Cheerful and pretty, I think.