For whatever reason, Christmas always inspires me to make things.  Last week, I told you how to make paper Christmas stars.  This week, I am sharing the recipe for making scented clay tags.

I can not emphasize enough how easy it is to make these tags.  As someone who has a short attention span and likes immediate results- I am not into complicated craft projects.  Further, the craft projects I make need to use items/ingredients that I already have on hand.  The scented clay tags fits these requirements quite well.

I found this recipe on Pinterest.  There are a whole variety of options you can try if you query “DIY clay tags ” on Pinterest.  This is the one I chose to use from Lily Ardor. It took me less than an hour to make all the tags. (Excluding baking time)

You will need these ingredients:

1/4 cup Cornstarch

1 cup Baking Soda

3/4 cup water

Essential oils – I used Fir, Peppermint and Orange

You will also need these items:

A pot for cooking all the ingredients

A bowl and spoon for mixing

A flat surface for rolling out the dough

Rolling pin

Cookie cutter(s)

A straw to create a hole at the top of the tag

 

 

 

 

 

Basically, as noted in the link above , you combine the cornstarch, baking soda and water in a pot and cook it until it is difficult to stir and combines into a doughy ball.

The photo below is what the pot looked like when I removed the dough -now turned clay.  Do you see how the dough/clay mixture sort of clings to the pot?  That’s the consistency you are aiming for.

 

 

Remove the clay from the heat of the stove and while it is still warm (but not hot) add your essential oils.  Knead in the essential oils into the clay. Please note that the recipe link posted above does not use essential oils.  I decided that I wanted to add the oils to the clay so that the tags would smell good. (Or Christmasy). I covered the cutting board with more baking soda so that the clay would not stick to the surface and then once the clay was cool enough, I rolled it out to about 1/4 inch thickness. Adding the essential oils to the clay made the entire house smell like Christmas!

You may note that in the photos above, I added skewers on the cutting board. While these aren’t required, I found they helped ensure a more uniform thickness to the rolled out dough. Once the clay is rolled out, use your cookie cutters to cut out the shapes you desire. Use the end of the straw to punch a hole into the top of each clay shape. As a side note, this clay is really nice to work with.  It’s extremely soft and can be re-rolled to cut out more shapes.

 

 

Then, transfer the clay shapes to a cookie sheet that is covered with a thin coat of baking soda.  I then baked them in the over at 150 degrees for about two hours.   Important tip: putting the clay shapes on baking soda prevents them from cracking or warping. I learned this the hard way.

Once the tags were cooled from the oven, I coated them with some mod podge.  Voila.  Your scented clay tags are done!

The clay tags can be air dried too.  However, baking them in the oven makes them a bit more durable.

You can use these clay tags as ornaments or to decorate gifts.  You can also add food coloring to the clay.  You can also imprint different shapes into the clay.  You can see I did an antique key imprint on one of the stars below. Finally, you can paint them.  The possibilities are endless.  The main point is to have fun making them and to make your house smell like Christmas!