Making a Valentine's Window Ornament with Bread or Craft Clay

If you are a clay crafter, this craft is perfect for you. If not, then it might be time to get started. You can make some extremely attractive ornaments to give as a gift or display in your home.

You can use bread clay or oven bake craft clay for these. You can purchase the craft clay at a craft store. You will need a 50-gram package of pink and also one of white for a two-color twist heart and just a package of white for the single-color twist heart. If you are using bread clay, find the recipe here:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/449143/bread_clay_flowers_a_beautiful_inexpensive.html

To create white bread clay, add white acrylic paint for the white clay and red and white for the pink. You can also use red food coloring.

Kneed the clay until it is smooth and easy to work. Remember in school when we made clay snakes? You are going to do the same with each color. For the two colored heart use a fourth of a package of each. Keep them separate of course. The strand will be about 17 inches in length when you are done. Try to make it as even in width all the way through as possible.

To make the two-colored heart lay the pink and the white next to each other making certain that the ends of the clay match. Pinch the ends together and begin to twist the two together in a candy cane fashion.

Lay the dough onto a nonstick surface. If you use the baking clay, this would be a cookie sheet. Form the clay into a heart shape and then pinch both ends together at the top V of the heart. You will need to flatten the end (You will be gluing decorations here later and need a tab to hold netting that holds them.) Also make certain that the clay making the upper V in the heart is long enough to make two holes in a vertical line one inch from each other.

Use a toothpick to make holes in the V as noted above. One will be used to hang a crystal heart and the other to hold the thread to hang the ornament.