How to Make a Decorative Eid Mobile
Create gorgeous, understated decorations for your home or for friends and family this Eid using air drying clay! It's simple to get to grips with this craft as a beginner and is a fantastic project that will span over about a week in short bursts. Not only do these decorations look super sophisticated, they're wonderful keepsakes to bring out time after time – and gift to loved ones!
Why not add your own personality by painting your favourite colours, adding stickers, decorating with POSCA paint pens or embellishing with pom poms and tassels?
You will need
How to make
Cut a chunk of clay off of the block and warm up in your hands. Roll out until roughly 1cm thick.
Use a circular cookie cutter to cut out the clay. Use a smaller cutter for the circle that'll appear at the top of the mobile, and a larger cutter for creating the moon shape that will hang below. To cut out the crescent moon shape, move the large size cutter over around 3cm once the larger circle has been cut and cut again (see photo 4). Remove excess clay.
Smooth clay out using a little water, focusing on any edges that may have been roughed up whilst cutting.
Use a small cutter or skewer to make holes in the top and bottom of each piece of clay, leaving roughly 1cm between the sides for stability. You'll want these holes to be able to fit twine through once dry, and air dry clay can shrink a little, so it's best to make the holes bigger than you think you'll need.
Use letter stamps to write your message! You could write your name, or a greeting. Here we've created one personalised set, and another reading 'Eid Mubarak'. Once complete set aside somewhere safe to dry. This can take up to 3 days depending on the heat and ventilation of the room that the clay is left to dry in.
Once completely dry you can use some fine sandpaper to neaten the clay up before painting.
Wipe any dust away from the clay using a dry cloth, and then paint if you'd like. We've painted the white clay to brighten but have left the terracotta as is.
Tie some twine in between each of the pieces, stacking the circle on top of the crescent moon shape. You can add beads here for extra decoration. Add some tassells to the bottom, again beads optional!
Then, once you're happy with your creation, tie some twine around the top and hang to add your new sophisticated decoration to your home!