Clay Crafts Tutorials. March 7th, 2024

How to make a leaf shape plate?

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Learn how to make a leaf shape plate with ceramic or clay in any shape or size you desire. For beginners we are using air dry clay which requires no baking in the oven, making it ideal for starters.

This green leaf-shaped clay dish is multi-purpose. Inspired by houseplants this beautiful design can be adopted into making clay bowls, plates, and so much more. You can capture the natural green leaf veins into the ceramic plate and glaze it to bring that shine if you enjoy pottery making art.

For this simple and easy clay tutorial we will focus on acrylic paints and mod podge to seal the leaf bowl. You can use it as key holder, candle holder, jewelry holder and even a coaster.

Leaf shape plate

Air dry clay is fun and easy medium to start making your creative ideas into reality. You can make fun projects. Some easy projects you can try like clay mushrooms and flower frog. For the artist who love to paint make a Van Gogh inspired paintbrush rest – a perfect accessory to place your brushes while painting. What’s more fun is that you can make clay vase and even napkin holders.

Here’s a video tutorial for making clay leaf shape plate. You can do this with any green leaf like a four leaf clover, fiddle leaf fig, or even a maple leaf.

Material needed for clay leaf

Now to make a leaf plate you will need:

Air dry clay
Rolling pin
Paint brush
Jar filled with water
Butter paper
Craft knife
A real leaf that will work like stencil

Acrylic paints
Any sealer of your choice like Mod podge, polyurethane, or resin

Instructions to make leaf plate

Take some clay just eye ball the quantity based on your leaf size. Now wet your hands and roll it into a ball.

Place it down on the surface. It is ideal to cover the surface with butter paper so that it doesn’t stick.

Roll it evenly and place your leaf cutout on top.

Here you can choose to roll the leaf inside the clay to engrave the natural veins and details of the leaf.

With the help of a blade trace and remove the excess clay from the sides.

Peel the leaf of the clay and let it rest.

In the picture Mushroom Candle Holder

How to shape a leaf into bowl or plate?

While leaving clay to rest and air dry notice that it will retain the shape it is allowed to rest as.

A flat shape can be achieved by leaving the leaf-shape rest straight.

You can give it a leaf-like shape by playing around with the shape. Use pencils, bamboo sticks and different size objects to place around the leaf to give it a hanging leaf appearance.

You can also let a large clay leaf like Monstera hang inside a plastic bowl to make leaf bowl. The idea is to line it with plastic wrap (aka seran wrap) so that it doesn’t stick to the bowl.

Let it dry completely for 24 hours.

How to paint a clay leaf plate?

The process of painting and glazing a clay object and baking it in oven brings unique items to life. However, for the purpose of air dry clay we can use acrylic paints.

I painted this leaf to resemble the original leaf but in a different shade of green. You can play with markers, paints and much more as you design your own leaf.

You will also like: How to Make DIY Resin Coasters WITHOUT molds?

How to seal air dry clay projects?

Once it dries you can give it a shiny look and a more sturdy form with resin. Dip the leaf in resin and let it cure for a day. Learn more about resin crafts.

For the purpose of using it as a jewelry holder when I work on my craft projects, I just sealed it with 2 coats of mod podge. My painting is not worn off with normal use of clay projects that I seal with mod podge.