Diya or Candle Holder: Tutorial using Air Dry Clay

Last year, around the same time students at Art Hours, were involved in activities related to Diwali crafts. I was digging up through the archives in my laptop, when I found a few pictures. Thought I should share it today with you all...and if it could be of any help...so you can make your own candle holders using air dry clay. Not a very difficult process either...can be tried by anyone and you don't need to be an expert in clay modeling to try out this one.

Air Dry Clay Candle Holders for Diwali

Materials required: 

Air dry clay, toothpick, clay modeling tools like a knife, some plastic or metal moulds for making the designs, poster colors or acrylic colors.

Procedure:

Take about 3" diameter ball of air dry clay (size of the clay ball depends upon the size of the candle holder you wish to make or actually the size of your palms) and roll it flat with the help of a roller. Let the thickness not be less than 1.0 cm since the clay will shrink by a few mm once it dries. So let's say we have rolled out a flat slab of 1.0 cm thick. Thereafter, trace the outline of your hand with a toothpick or any sharp instrument. And then cut out the hand shape. The kids used a plastic knife that comes with the kid's clay modeling tools to cut out the hand shape and it worked out just fine.

The kids used a combination of clay moulds, sketch pen lids, and even toothpicks to inscribe some design on the hand surface before leaving it to dry.

Thereafter, we took a bowl and left the hand-shaped clay cut-out on the bowl to dry. Let the clay models dry naturally for at least 48 hours before you apply any paint for further decoration. 

Leave the clay candle holders to dry out naturally

After 48 hours, we applied colors on the candle holder and they were ready to use. The finishes will depend upon the paint you have used. If you desire a glossy finish use acrylic colors, otherwise poster colors also will do.

Candle holders by Art Hours

Lef Inset: Candle Holder with application of Poster Colors
Right Inset: Candle Holder with application of Acrylic Colors

Try this activity with your kids or students. Art Hours clay modeling students simply loved making this one.

Made your Diwali a memorable one...Have a great festive week ahead!

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Origami Candle Holder

Last year, around the same time, while I was digging the internet to find some interesting Diwali craftwork for children, I discovered different origami models serving as candle holders. Here, are a few origami models that I tried. Each origami candle holder turned out beautiful and just perfect for holding candles for any occasion.

Origami Candle Holders: Model 01 and 02

Origami Candle Holders: Model 03

Out of all the above models, Model 02 is quite easy to make. And, this is what we are going to learn to make in this post.

This Diwali, learn to make a candle holder. An easy model to try and even an origami beginner who isn't aware of complicated folds can try making this one.

Try it out with your kids this Diwali week and involve your children in the festivities and fun. 

This origami candle holder is a single sheet model and the steps to fold it are very simple. Also, it takes less than 5 minutes to make it. So, go ahead and make loads of them this Diwali season. You can fold them back and reuse it in the next season...so that's budget friendly and economic reuse of paper too. 

Materials required: Square Origami paper or square colored papers. The size of the paper to be used depends on the size of the lights you are going to use. For this tutorial, a white square paper of size 6"x 6" was used.

Here's the procedure showing every step.

Step 01:

Start by making creases along both the diagonals as shown in the picture below.

Step 01: Make creases along both the diagonals.

Step 02: Fold down all the four corners to meet at the center. Now, this is what is called an Origami Blintz base.

Step 02: Fold down all the four corners to meet at the centre

Step 03: Turn over the model.

Step 03: Turn over the model

Step 04: Now, fold the four corners again to meet at the center. So, now we have applied a double blintz to the model.

Step 04: Fold down the corners to meet at the center

Step 05: Now, fold the tip of the flap, upwards to touch the outer edge of the square shape as shown in the picture below. Repeat for all the remaining sides.

Step 05: Fold the tips to touch the outer edges of the square

Step 06: Next, turn over the model and fold all the edges to meet at the center one by one. Crease well. Then open the folds and you will observe the creases as you see in the picture below. Do not skip this step.

Step 06: Apply the creases

Step 07: In this step, open the flaps and let it touch the corners as shown below. Crease well again.

Step 07: Open the flaps to touch the corners

Step 08: Now, insert your fingers below the triangular flaps at the corners and press the model downwards following the crease you made in step 06, to get a depth in the model. You will see a square base is formed at the bottom. And it is done. The candle holder is ready for use.

You can use this for holding LED lights or Diyas. 

Tips by Art Hours:

• Use colored sheets to make them colorful and decorate with sequins or glitter as desired. 
• This model will turn out well with a little thick paper and last longer too. So, a chart paper or card paper would be ideal for this model.

Origami Candle Holder

Now, mind you, this candle holder is safe for use with LED lights or diyas...after all its just made from paper and not safe to use it with wax candles.

I loved this origami model in particular because they can be safely compressed back and reused while they last, for more than one season. You just need to take them out during any festivity which requires a candle holder and reuse them; be it Diwali or Christmas or any other festival of lights, parties or occasions that call for a candle holder. So try making this origami model...decorate with a different theme this year and let your Diwali celebration be an eco-friendly one.

Here's a quick preview of the steps to making this origami candle holder on our youtube channel.

Have a Happy and Safe Diwali.

Thank you for stopping by...Do like and share this post, leave in your comments and queries. We are looking forward to constructive comments.

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Handmade Diyas from Salt Dough: Budget friendly Diwali DIY

Diwali is over...the five days of festivities are over!

I wake up in the morning only to realize that the festival time is finally over and I have to get back to the daily routine...we feel so awful when we come in terms with the reality...call it post festival depression or whatever, nothing could change how I felt the way I felt!

As I went about the house clearing up the things and removing decorations from around the house, I collected the colorful diyas we made just before Diwali. It's an activity we don't do every year, and Diwali also was just a few days away...but we gave it a try all the same...better late than never!

Here's a picture of the few Diyas, we made from Salt Dough for the Diwali celebration this year. 

Salt Dough Diyas

And while I am at it, let me share the recipe for the salt dough diya too. Maybe, next year some of you could give it a try. It happens that you will find flour and salt in every home in the Indian household and it turns out that this diyas are budget friendly too. So here's presenting a budget friendly Diwali DIY that you should really try for, next year, same time.

Recipe for Salt Dough Diya:

Dough (Atta or Maida-refined wheat flour) - 1 cup

Salt - 1/2 cup

Water - Enough to knead the flour ( I used about 1/2 cup)

Method:

Mix the Atta or Maida with salt (here I used Maida and salt), and then add water gradually as you knead them or else the dough would end up being too loose. Once, the dough is ready you can start making the diyas, or you can also refrigerate them in an air-tight container to use later. In fact, I used mine after a couple of days only.

The dough kneaded with using the above proportions yielded about 8 medium sized diyas; the size was big enough to hold tealight candles. To shape the diyas we used the same method as per the tutorial I posted earlier for making diyas using air dry clay. You can view the same tutorial here. We made the diyas experimenting in different shapes and sizes; we made some in the shape of a mango leaf, a couple of pentagons and hexagons and a heart shape too.

I experimented by trying to bake one of the diyas in the microwave and the result was disastrous for it just got burnt in a couple of minutes; probably the temperature was too high. I wasn't in the mood to burn the rest of them that my daughter and I had both made with so much patience and hard work. So I left them to dry in the sun to let it dry naturally. It took nearly 4 days to dry off completely.

Salt Dough Diyas before drying

Once the diyas were left in the sun to dry, I kept on checking them everyday on their progress...All of them had dried from the top but the bottom surface was still wet...so I had to turn them over so that the bottom surface would also be exposed to the sun and would eventually dry out. Finally, on the 4th day, I found them all dry and ready to be painted.

Sun-dried Salt Dough Diyas for Diwali

Once these diyas dried, I found they had shrinked in size - a little wee bit. We used acrylic paints to add colors. It was just a day before the Kali Puja, and we left the Diyas to dry again - this time the paint had to dry. Finally, the wait was over and the result was beautiful. We had some beautiful handmade decorative diyas ready to be used for the Diwali nights. And yes, they were budget friendly too!

Hand-painted Salt Dough Diyas for Diwali

Hope you find the tutorial useful. Do share your views and ideas if you try making them. Hoping to hear about your experiences too and learn from them also.

Do share this tutorial with your friends and family too.

Thank you for stopping by...have a good day!

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