Weddingbee Blog

One of the most important parts of the ceremony to me is the ring warming ceremony.  I remember seeing them show up in Mrs. Hippo’s and Mrs. Bacon’s weddings, and I just loved how it worked.

However, in order to do the ceremony, you need a way of passing the ring around. While our officiant offered to let us use a draw string bag that she has, I wanted to incorporate something that was more themed appropriately.

Photo by: Lisa Hessel Photography on Every Last Detail via Lover.ly

As soon as I saw the clay plate, I knew that that was our solution. I really loved how sweet it looked and I loved that we could keep it as a ornament to hang on our Christmas tree in the future.

I used a couple of different holders as my inspiration.

Photo by: Belathée Photography on Dorothee Brand via Lover.ly

I used a tutorial from Intimate Weddings with my own personal twists.

Image via Intimate Weddings

Supplies:

-sculpey clay, or any other oven bake clay. I bought an eight oz container and only ended up using about three oz (including the birds). You can get two oz things for like three dollars.

-hard clean surface. I used my nonstick silpat.

-circle cutter. I used one of those disposable Tupperware containers you get from takeout

-toothpick to make holes on top

-alphabet letters (Do you see the amazing set I got? I’m so excited)

- oven (for setting the clay)

-bowl for shaping the bowl

Optional:

-Rubbing alcohol for smoothing the birds

-super glue for gluing the birds on the bowl

So sad.

1) clean your surfaces and your stamp kit. I didn’t do this step, and the little specks of dust that got stuck in the clay are driving me nuts. Because we’re using white clay here, every single little thing suddenly is incredibly obvious. I would use a little bit of clay to see if the surface leaves stuff in your clay. I originally started rolling the clay on my cutting board since it’s a bit smoother than my silpat, but it left an orange residue all over the clay. Sad panda.

2) add any detailing that will cover the corner. If you want anything that will run over the edge, now is the time to add it.

3) cut out your dish. I just pressed down on the clay with the takeout container until it came out.

4) press your words into the dish. I practiced how hard to put in the stamp on some scrap clay before I did it for real. You want to be careful since too deep and you’ll get impressions of the stamp itself but not deep enough and you can’t read it. I also wanted to try to center my letters, so I started from the middle of the phrase and worked my way out. It’s clearly not exact, but it’s good enough.

5) punch holes in the top of the dish for your ribbon. I used a toothpick, but the hole it made wasn’t big enough, so I teased it more open by moving the toothpick around.

before I sprayed them, putting them on the edge of a container to get a lip

6) make the birds. I just molded the clay until it looked bird-like. After they looked like I wanted, I sprayed them with rubbing alcohol and used my fingers to get out most of the fingerprints and rough spots. I also stuck the birds into the edge of a bowl to give it a little lip to more easily stick the bird to the bowl. Make sure your lip and your bowl fit together well before you bake it, not afterwards like I did.

7) Stick them in the oven. put the dish into a larger oven safe dish with the correct curvature, carefully pressing it in. Stick it into a 275 degree oven, 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the thickness of your piece.

8) Finishing touches. Sand the edges. Glue the birds. I very clearly gained as the lip on the birds since they didn’t come together very easily, but you can’t tell after I let the superglue set. Add ribbon. Tada! It’s really that easy.

This clearly isn’t the greatest job, since it’s hard to read some of the letters. It’s a lot more obvious in real life, but you still need to look at it until the right lighting. I’m wondering about tinting the letters a little with possibly a slight grey color, but I haven’t thought of a good way to do that yet.

Furthermore, because I didn’t clean my letters before using, you can see some of the crud from that.

I’m not sure if those two things are enough to make me remake it, but it is something that I noticed, and might really bother a more OCD person. Lastly, I’m not sure if I want to seal it with a glaze, but that is also an option I’m thinking about.

Did anyone do a non-traditional ring holder?