How to Make Lace Hearts from Air Dry Clay for Ornaments & Magnets

How to make lace hearts from air dry clay to use as ornaments or magnets.

Okay, so we’re getting a bit obsessed here with our lace hearts.

Making lace prints in dough is awesome! The process is very, very satisfying (for kids and adults alike) and it creates such a lovely relief of the lace. We’ve been doing this with playdough and air dry clay and I also want to try it in cookie dough, salt dough, real potter’s clay. Anything else?

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Earlier this week, I posted about our playdough lace prints (and what the kids did with this pretty, textured dough). Today, I’m going to share the homemade heart ornaments and magnets that we made with the more permanent air dry clay.

How to Make Lace Hearts in Clay

MATERIALS

• Air dry clay (we used the Crayola air dry clay but you could also try a different brand or make your own)
• Crochet doilies or other thicker-type lace*
• Parchment paper
• Rolling pin
• Medium heart cookie cutter (ours was 3 inches across)
• Plastic drinking straws
• Small beads (optional)
• Paint (optional); we used Colorations Activity Paint and BioColors, in metallic colors
• String or thin ribbon

*We used crochet doilies picked up at a yard sale, but you can also find them available for purchase at craft stores, fabric stores, and online. Also, give any thicker lace a try, including lace ribbon. Just don’t use paper doilies.

How to Print Lace Hearts

1. Place clay on parchment paper. Add doily & roll.

Pull off a piece of air dry clay and set on a sheet of parchment paper.** Lay your lace doily over the clay and use a rolling pin to press the doily design into the clay.

**Use parchment paper to cover your work surface rather than the plastic mats shown in some of these photos. We quickly learned that the clay lifts up easily from parchment paper but not from the plastic mats.

2. Lift the doily to reveal the lace print.

Look at that detail!

3. Cut a heart from the clay with the cookie cutter.

4. Use a straw to punch a hole at the top for hanging.

5. Option #1 :: Add beads

If you like, you can embellish your lace heart by pressing small beads into the design. Daphne really got into this.

If you add beads, make sure to press them in well. A couple of her beads fell off after the heart dried and I had to glue them back in place.

Here’s another one she made.

I pressed a few beads into the ones I made as well.

6. Option #2 :: Paint clay hearts

If you like, you can even paint the hearts once they are dried (especially if you didn’t add beads).

The paints we used are Colorations Activity Paint and BioColors, in metallic colors, and both available through Discount School Supply. Tempera or acrylics would work okay as well.

6. Let clay hearts dry, then add ribbon

Allow the clay hearts dry (ours took a couple days) then thread string or a narrow ribbon through the hole and hang.

I really like how these ornaments look against my teal door!

We sent our lace heart ornaments as Valentine’s Day gifts to the grandmas and cousins. And also included some magnets we made using the same technique.

Here’s the (simple) magnet variation…

How to Make Lace Heart Magnets

MATERIALS

• Air dry clay
• Crochet doilies or other thicker-type lace
• Parchment paper
• Rolling pin
• Small heart cookie cutter (ours was 1 3/4 inches across)
• Paint (optional); we used Colorations Activity Paint and BioColors, in metallic colors
• Small magnet disks
• Hot glue gun

INSTRUCTIONS

We’ll add magnets to the backs of these little lace-print hearts…

A photo posted by Jean Van’t Hul | Artful Parent (@jeanvanthul) on Feb 8, 2016 at 12:38pm PST

• Follow the instructions for the lace hearts through cutting out the hearts, but use a smaller heart cookie cutter for the magnets.
• Let dry. This takes about a day for these smaller clay hearts.

• Paint if desired. Again we used Colorations Activity Paint and BioColors, but tempera or acrylics would work okay too. Let the paint dry.
• Use a hot glue gun to glue the small magnet disks to the backs of the clay hearts.

Use your new lace heart magnets to hang artwork on the fridge! And to give as gifts…

Want more ideas? Click here for 30 Valentine Crafts and Activities for Kids (with a FREE printable list!).

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