Tutorial for how to make a clay bowl by hand. Gift to friends or family, or keep one for yourself. This is a great kids craft too!

Hi there! So, I have to tell you. I’ve had these DIY clay bowls sitting on my kitchen counter for a couple of weeks now. I finally got around to finishing them up and taking pictures. And you know what? I’ve actually been using them in that time.

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They are so handy! Throwing little bits and baubles in there throughout the week. I love working with air-dry clay. There’s no worry about using the oven and the final projects turn out beautiful.

diy gold nesting bowls. Makes a great gift or a pretty catch-all for everyday small items!

My idea with these was to create a set of nesting bowls and then gold leaf them. I wanted them to have a vintage-y look to them. I found this gold paint in my craft stash and I just decided to use that instead of gold leaf. Soooo let’s get started!

Things You’ll Need

Air Dry Clay (I use this brand and love it)
Wax paper
Gold Paint
Set of small and medium rounded bowls or cups to form the nesting bowls. (I used a small glass vase and a stemless wine glass).

This project really takes no time at all. The hardest part is knowing when to stop. My perfectionist nature wanted every.little.crack. smoothed out. But, at some point, I had to call it quits. It still turned out good and the gold paint helps hide the cracks.

And after all, we are going for a rather vintage look here. Right? I wanted mine to have a somewhat collected feel to them. Like I snagged them from a thrift store or something.

How to Make a Clay Bowl by Hand

how to make nesting bowls out of clay.

Total time: 2 days

Roll out your clay
I learned that putting your air dry clay on wax paper helps it not stick to the surface. So I sandwiched the clay with wax paper and rolled it out a bit. You can use a jar to roll it out. It also helps to put water or lotion on your hands!

form bowl shape

Take your rolled clay and form a loosely shaped bowl. Use your lotioned hands to smooth it out and fix any cracks. You can use your hand to help shape the bowls too. Take your rounded objects and set the clay on top, gently forming it over the shape. I want a piece-y look to my edges. So I made little rips in the clay at the edges.

Repeat with the second bowl

Create another bowl, but this time, you want it to be larger or smaller than the first one, so you can nest the bowls together.

You can test your two nesting bowls to ensure that they fit right together. Then just let them air dry for 48 hrs (check your specific clay instructions).

Paint your Bowls (optional)

After 48 hours, you are ready to paint! This is totally optional, but my brand of air-dry clay dries to a grayish color. I really wanted white. So I spray painted them white. Then I let the bowls fully dry before moving on.

After the paint was dry, I took my gold paint and painted the insides and rims. I let that dry for 24 hours.