Arts and crafts can be a good way to relieve some tension or to help keep young children occupied. Clay modeling projects are fun ways to use your creativity--and a lump of soft clay--to bring your ideas to life. You can use standard gray-colored clay, or you can get clay in a multitude of different colors. Once you get started creating clay projects, the only thing that keeps you from making your own work of art is the limits of your imagination.
Holiday Ornaments
The holidays are always a good time to take on a new arts and crafts project, and making clay holiday ornaments is a fun way to spend a cold winter afternoon. You can start off with simpler projects, such as making snowmen and candy canes, but use your imagination to make those simple projects stand out. Use colored clay to create a broad range of costume ideas for your snowman, and create unusual color schemes on your candy canes. Try various shapes such as stars, snowflakes and even your own sleigh.
Garden Scenes
With some imagination you can use modeling clay to create garden scenes and representations of things you would find in a garden. Cut a block of clay into small clay bricks, and create your own garden wall. You can use bricks to make other garden pieces, such as a wishing well, a park bench and a small garden shed. Use different-colored clay to make a brick path in your garden scene, and you can also create trees and other foliage. Once you get started creating your own clay garden, it can be fun to see where your imagination will take you.
Stamping
Stamping is the process of taking a raised mold of some kind, pressing it into the clay to create an image and then allowing it to dry. Many different kinds of stamping kits are available to help you create images ranging from butterflies to palm trees. One way you can add something special to your clay stamping is to create a clay frame around your images, then decorate your frame as well. You can create an oval frame or a square frame and then use a cutting tool to make your own designs.
