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It’s just a little over a week til Christmas Day, and if you have an hour or two to spare here is a small craft you can do before giving friends and relatives their presents which add a lovely personal touch.
During lockdown I tried my hand at a new craft I had come across, making botanical plaster tiles which I posted a tutorial on earlier in the year.These fossil pieces feel to me like modern minimalist versions of traditional pressed flowers in frames and I love them. It’s a really enjoyable low stress craft that brings me mindfulness and I really enjoy making these pieces. My initial blog post tutorial on how to make plaster cast floral tiles was one of my most popular blog posts of the year so it appears to be a growing trend. The tile I made in spring still takes up pride of place on the bedroom mantle so I thought it would be nice to create some as mini Christmas gifts this year. I think they look great attached to ribbon on giftwrap and they leave the option to be used by your recipient either on their Christmas trees or as a keepsake.
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My idea was a little ad-hoc, but one morning last week armed with an old coaster of the right size and a selection of winter foliage picked up on walks I sat down and made a few. I’m really pleased with the rustic look of these freestyle pieces, they are a little darker in the first shots with wrapping paper as they weren’t fully dry when I shot them but I think you get the gist of them.
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The flowers that I think work well are often those with densely detailed foliage, in the past I’ve found chive flowers, lavender, Pennisetum grass and thistles all good (though with thistles you will spend a lot of time picking out debris from thistles with tweezers before you’re ready to cast). For Christmas I picked up small pieces that caught my eye out and about, there isn’t such an abundance of choice at this time of year, however there is a lot of striking skeletal detail about so it’s easy to see what will work well. For these decorations I chose an assortment of berries, dried lavender, pine, mimosa buds and the odd structure that caught my eye.
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What you will need:
- Flowers (see notes above for what works well)
- Clay
- Plaster of Paris
- A bowl to mix that you don’t use for other purposes
- A rolling pin (I found my wooden kitchen one far more effective than stone craft rollers)
- A sheet to protect the surface you’re working on
- An old magazine
- A matchstick or similar to make a hole for hangable decorations
- A pair of tweezers to fish any stray ends out
Method;
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Roll your clay;
Roll out a piece of clay, warming it in your hands first, insuring that it has a flat surface (this part is crucial, as I learnt to my cost when my first tile picked up surface texture I wasn’t expecting!). Cut clay to the size of your desired tile, I used a coaster to make a circle cutting away the extra which I then used the off cuts from to create a margin to hold the plaster later.
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Remove flowers and any left over debris;
Remove the floral samples using a pair of tweezers to gently remove any debris that does not come out with the bloom on initial pull. Again, be careful not to touch the clay as this could alter the smoothness of the surface.
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Create border for plaster of Paris;
Attach a border to your tile with the offcuts of clay you saved earlier using your fingers to adhere these edging pieces to the tile so that it is proofed from possible leaks. If you are making a hanging decoration insert your matchstick at this stage at the point you would like the decoration to hang.
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Mix your plaster;
Mix up your plaster of Paris in a container you won’t use for food purposes. I asked google for help with this and stuck to that ratio 2:1 of plaster to water. The success of plaster of Paris is all in the mixing. Add the powder slowly and evenly as you would decorating a cake. Tap the bottom of your container to distribute the plaster, mixing with a spoon for the last third of the mix, but do this gently, the chief aim of mixing plaster of Paris is to avoid air bubbles.
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Pour plaster and leave to dry;
Pour the plaster of Paris mixture over your clay tile and leave to dry. This should take about 20 minutes at room temperature. When it feels set, gently lift away one of the side guards to check, when everything is set remove all clay from tile.
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Perform any last minute touch-ups;
With some water in a bowl and a jay cloth gently remove any remnants of clay from your plaster tile, remembering that a light touch is optimal as you don’t want to dull any of your fossil details.
Leave to dry and sand as desired;
Leave to fully dry for a week, you can now sand around the edges for a straight edge, although I rather like them a bit rustic.
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Where I went wrong;
Finding your perfect blooms will probably take some trial and error, I have already explained the varieties that worked for me above, as a general rule don’t choose anything too delicate or anything dried that has a bulky bloom (seed heads just crumbled into a terrible mess for me). Work your clay a little first to endure an even surface when you roll it. And finally pray that you won’t get air bubbles! Good luck, I’d love to hear how you get on if you try to make one of these.
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