Add some minimal festive decor to your home with this H&M-inspired faux ceramic Christmas tree!
H&M have been absolutely nailing the festive decor this year in my opinion. When I set eyes on their Porcelain Christmas decoration, I fell in love, and knew that I had to have a go at making my own version from clay. I usually prefer working in air-dry clay as I find it a bit more forgiving and it worked a treat for this project. As your using solid bits of clay for this project, it does take a while to dry, and if you want to have a crack free end result, use clingfilm to slow the drying process down even more. I like how chunky and quirky my tree turned out to be. I think a little forest of these in different sizes and shades of green would be really cute. If you think so too, keep reading for the step by step instructions on how to make them yourself!
1.
Take a chunk of clay and press it into a cone like shape. Roll this on it’s side at an angel to smooth out the sides and to perfect your cone. Make sure the base is round and flat, and the tip is pointy. Put this to one side.
2.
Repeat step 1 with a large lump of clay. Then chop off the top so that you have a flat circular top and bottom, but the sides are angled like a cone.
3.
Score the top of the shape from step 2 and apply some clay slip. You can make a slip easily by leaving chopped up clay in water overnight.
4.
Use the slip to adhere the cone from step 1 to the top of the shape from step 2. We now have a two layered tree. Put this to one side.
5.
Repeat step 2 with an even larger chunk of clay. This will form the third and final layer of our tree.
6.
Score the top of this layer, and adhere the two layered tree from step 4 to this with clay slip. Now, leave this to dry. To prevent cracking, you want to allow the clay to dry really slowly and evenly, so loosely lay some clingfilm over it.
7.
Once dry, use the clay slip to smooth out the sides and to ensure that the edges are rounded. This gives the tree a cute cartoon like quality.
8.
Air-dry clay is porous and water soluble, so apply a layer of mod podge to seal and prime it ready for painting.
9.
Apply two coats of paint in your colour of choice (I, of course, went for dark green!) and leave this to dry.
10.
Finally, seal this with another coat of mod podge. Use mod podge with a glossy finish to give your tree the look of ceramic or porcelain.
