REVIEW: Mod Metallic Trays

With the wellness day coming up, I thought that a small art project would be the perfect way to destress and enjoy my “spring break”. This craft was an art project supplied by the Ann Arbor Art Center, and in the kit included some instructions, one package of white Model Magic air dry clay, a huge thing of gold paint (relative to the size of the clay), a paintbrush, and a piece of wax paper for letting the clay dry on.

First I looked through the instructions, which were pretty basic, and detailed how to create a pinch pot as a starting point to the suggested crafts. These included a ring tray, small bowl, and flat lipped tray. I chose to do a flat lipped tray, but make it heart shaped, just to make it interesting. The instructions also suggested using materials from around the house to push imprint patterns into the clay, which I thought was genius. I used a couple of my rings that I wear every day to make the shapes that I included on my tray, as well as some necklaces that I have which have heart-shaped pendants. I had so much fun looking through my room and trying to find different items that I could use to push shapes into the clay.

Here it is from the top, with two different necklaces used to make shapes in the clay for the inside of the bowl. I also tried to make shapes on the inside of the lip of the tray with another ring, but for some reason those did not turn out as well. You can sort of see them on the sides of the tray in the above picture as well. Pushing the necklaces in to the clay was hard without accidentally making other markings from the necklace, as well as not pushing against some of the shapes that were already there and causing them to fade a little. You can see that it was hard to make the hearts uniform in terms of depth. But it looked pretty cool at this point! Below, you can see I used another ring to do a different design along the outer edge of the tray too.

I waited 24 hours for the clay to dry like the instructions said, and then I started painting! The gold paint they provided was so sparkly and pretty, I wish I had more things to paint it with. It especially looked gorgeous because I was painting in the light of my window, so the sun was making it look so cool. Below you can see I outlined each heart on the inside of the tray along the lines of where I pressed them into the clay. I think it turned out looking pretty cool! I didn’t try to make it super neat or anything because I wanted it to be more fun than perfect. 

Below you can see I painted the whole outside so as to be able to see the pattern too. I love how it turned out overall and it was also a blast to mold the clay and paint.

This was one of the most fun things I have done for a review in a while! The art I review is not usually so hands-on, and I had a really good time playing with the clay and painting it with that gorgeous gold paint in the sun.