Heart Fake Bake Cookie Ornaments - Valentine's Day or Christmas

 

Supplies: 

• Air Dry Clay
  
• Rolling Pin
• Food Storage Bag
• Cookie Cutter
• Drinking Straw
• Tan Paint (or colors you can mix to make tan)
• Paint Brushes
• Slick Dimensional Fabric Paint 
• Glue Gun
• Scissors
• Ribbon
• Twine 

    First, take a handful of air dry clay and roll it in your hands to remove fold and crease marks. Then place the ball of clay on a flat surface and use a rolling pin to flatten it out like cookie dough. Place a food storage bag on top of your clay and use your cookie cutter to cut shapes (in this case, hearts) into the clay. Since you place the cookie cutter on top of the food storage bag and not directly on the clay, it will leave your cut hearts with a bit more of a rounded shape near the cut edge. This gives it a more "baked" and "out of the oven" appearance as opposed to a blunt, flat, cut out piece of clay. However, it may add a crease to your clay. If so, just use your finger to smooth it out. Repeat steps until you have the desired amount of heart shaped clay pieces and place the remaining clay back into the container for your next project. If you want to hang these hearts once complete, use the end of a straw to cut a hole in the top corner of each heart. Then, set the hearts in a location to dry for a few days. Drying times may vary depending on location and humidity. I placed mine on a sheet of paper and then put that paper on a plastic tray. The next day, I flipped each heart over to allow the other side to dry. 

    Once your hearts are completely dry, use your tan (or sugar cookie colored) paint to cover all sides of the heart and around the inside of the hole. Allow that full coverage layer of paint to dry. It should dry rather quickly. If you would like to draw out designs in pencil to follow when applying the dimensional fabric paint, then now would be the time. I however, just went straight at it with the paint. I started by applying dots of slick white dimensional fabric paint around the parameter of the heart. Once that was complete, I took a paint brush and stuck it into each dot of paint and dragged some of the paint inwards toward the center of the heart. Repeat that around the perimeter of the heart.  Then I went into the center and made random "swirls" of paint. Even pressure on the tube and steady motion of the hand with the tip of the paint slightly above the heart is needed in order to achieve a line of paint without breaks. However, if you don't like your design, it is not hard to take a paint brush and "scoop" up and remove the paint. Once my swirls were to my liking, I added dots to fill in any empty spaces as well as around the edge of my paint strokes I pulled toward the center. 

    Let your dimensional paint dry a day or two. Make sure it is fully dry before tying on a piece twine to hang the heart. Lastly, I attached a ribbon bow to the twine with hot glue.  

Think of all the fun shapes you can cut out and make "cookies" for besides hearts!!! They don't even have to look like sugar cookies. You can make them look like chocolate or gingerbread as well. 

Happy Crafting!!!