DIY leather effect clay trinket dish

This post is part of a sponsored partnership with Staedtler

Do you often find yourself discarding your favourite pieces of jewellery around the house? If your nightly ritual includes leaving your rings and necklaces on your bedside table this is the DIY for you! 

I'm guessing you've assumed that this trinket dish is made from some type of leather? Well look again folks, this catch-all dish has been made from clay. (Yes that's right, clay!!!) FIMO has created a leather-effect clay and it's pure GENIUS. Before I tried it I was a little sceptical, I figured it would be strange to work with and wouldn't really look like leather but I was sooooo wrong. 

I'm so excited to share this project with you, I'm rarely this excited about a product but this is something special.

The beauty of this clay is that once you've baked it becomes flexible. You can bend it, emboss it, cut it and even sew it. (Think of all the things you could make with leather-effect.. key rings, bookmarks, purses, jewellery. I have so many ideas for future projects already.)

I'm going to share the simple tutorial for this 'leather' trinket dish and you'll see why I'm so obsessed with this new discovery.

Materials:

FIMO leather effect clay

Clay machine (or a rolling pin)

Knife

Ruler

Thread

Step 1. Pick your leather effect. I'm using the grey here but it comes in a wide range of colours (You can also combine different colours together to create new shades or cute effects like marble).

Step 2. Roll out the clay, use a flat working surface like a tile, glass sheet or baking paper.

Step 3. Next, roll the clay out to a thickness of approximately 4mm. I've been using a clay machine and it's a total game-changer. 

I rolled my clay out waaaaay more times than I needed purely because I wanted to play with it. You just pop your clay in and turn the handle to roll out perfectly even clay.

....Obviously, you can use a rolling pin to roll the clay flat, it's just not as much fun!

Step 4. Once you've rolled the clay to a 4mm thickness you'll need to cut out a rectangle shape. (Use a sharp knife and push down when you cut leather effect to keep the edges sharp.) I cut my rectangle to measure 5-inches by 4-inches for my trinket dishes. Remove any excess clay. 

Step 5. Using your knife cut out a small square from each corner of your rectangle and leave to one side. 

Step 6. Pierce holes in each corner of the remaining clay shape. 

 The trinket dish is now ready to bake.

Step 7. Bake the clay at 130 degrees for no longer than 30 minutes. Allow to cool before handling the clay.

Step 8. Finish the trinket dishes by folding the sides up and tying some string through the corner holes to secure. 

I can't believe how similar this clay is to leather after baking, it's looks and feels like the real thing, it's so damn clever! 

... if you didn't know better you'd think this was a leather dish right? I'm keeping mine in the bedroom to stash my jewellery in. 

These dishes are also really handy for keeping keys and coins in too.

What do you think? Let me know if you try using this clay too!

Back soon

Caroline x