{Tutorial} How to Make Decorative Birds with Clay

I've been having a lot of fun making these clay birds from Sculpey and some items from around the house.  You can find the full tutorial on my Hubpages.

My favorite part is creating the designs on the wings.  I used various items I had hanging around, like vintage buttons and beads.  I made these birds to sit on a natural branch, but you can also use them to decorate a mantle, a flower pot or planter, a wreath, or as a Christmas ornament.

You can also add more decoration and color to these birds after they've hardened with colored pencils or paint.  You can find this easy step-by-step tutorial on my Hubpages!

Trying My Hand at Basketmaking

I've posted before about my love with handmade baskets, so I was thrilled to take my first basketmaking class this past weekend.

We made a woven market basket with a wooden handle.  The basket measures about 12 inches long and 8 inches wide.  The design included darker reed detailing and we got to choose our contrasting color.  I chose a wine color for this detail, which is hard to see in these photos.

Basket making isn't really easy, but the process is pretty straight forward.  It took us about 5 hours to make our baskets.  And it was a lot of fun once you get the hang of it.

I really love my finished basket.  It isn't perfect, but I'm very pleased with my first attempt.  I'm already scheduled to take another class and learn to make a different style of basket.