Star Seed Ornament

Materials needed:
• clay (I used Sculpy and it worked but the guys recommended oil clay)
• plaster of paris
• aluminum pie tin
• oil (I used olive oil)
• junk mail (I love that about this project- a use for junk mail)
• seeds (I used a wild flower seed mix)
• powdered tempra paint (optional)
• hemp string
• white glue
• clean sponge



So my son would have been 2 this year (he was stillborn on May 26, 2007), so for his birthday this year we decided to name a star after him. I had seen this craft show where they made ornaments out of paper pulp and mixed seeds in with it. I loved this idea because it was a beautiful idea of creating life in memory of my child. So I made this simple star paper pulp ornament that was mailed to our family along with where the star we named after him was located and then when they were done with the ornament the flowers from it will hopefully grow and be a reminder of their nephew/grandson/cousin that they lost.

To start decide what shape of thing you want to create. In my case it was a simple star but the guy who I saw talk about it did a butterfly. You can go more complex with it if you want- adding dimension and detail, your imagination is your limit. I also recommend making 2 of the shapes you want so that way you can make 2 ornaments at a time. Next I baked my stars according to the directions on the clay (I used Sculpy which is a oven bake clay- I am not sure you need hard clay that is just what I did- feel free to experiment).

Once the stars were done I grabbed my shapes, my pie tin, my oil, and my plaster of paris and measured out the plaster of paris according to the directions. I mixed it up and pour it slowly into the pie tin. I had bubbles in it and they said to tap it to get them out. I couldn't get them all out but it didn't affect my end result. Once I had about the plaster about 3/4ths of the way filled I then put olive oil on my shapes that I baked and placed them in the plaster of paris. They didn't go down as far as I wanted it to so I placed some small bits of clay on top to give it a bit more weight. In about an hour I took my shapes out and let the plaster of paris dry for another 23 hours.

Once my plaster of paris was dry I oiled the mold up and I gathered my junk mail and ripped it up (good therapy I tell ya) then placed it in the blender til it was half full. I then filled the rest of it up with water. Blended it and got wet pulp. Next I added the tempra powder (your choice of color) and ran the blender once more. (Now this is the messey part) I then grabbed a handful and gently squeezed over my sink to get most of the water out. I kept doing this until I felt like I had a good amount of it for the mold then I added a bit more of the wet pulp and a sprinkle of seeds. Then I squished it into the mold. Next I got my sponge and pushed it on top of it and got as much water as I could. Then again I worked the pulp mixture into the mold until I was happy with it then I placed it outside under the sun to heat it (this gave them a more muted look to it) you can also put it by a fan and let it sit there for a long time (this is why I recommend doing more than one mold).

Once they were dry I pryed it out with a craft knife (really easy once it is dry) then I painted both sides of the ornament with a mixture of 50/50 water/white glue solution. Then when that was dry I glued a loop of hemp string onto it to create the finished ornament. Then I packaged them up with a hand made card and then sent them out. We only sent out 8 of them but we got amazing responses from it. Mine has already started sprouting!!