Can I use oven bake/air dry clay to make candle holders?
Can I use ovenbake/airdry clay to make candle holders?
Is it possible to use ovenbake or airdry clay to make a candle holder? Specifically, the candle holder’s design would be similar to this one:
http://www.atticshoppe.com/images/porcel…
The tealight goes inside and light and heat escape through the little windows and doors.
Or would it be safer to alter the design to have a glass globe to hold the tealight, like this design:
http://www.katescottage.net/images/house…
Is this something that ought not be attempted with clays that aren’t fired in a kiln?
I also can’t access those sites so I don’t know the size and shape of candle holder you’re wanting.
The main thing for using either an air-dry clay or a polymer clay (also called oven-bake clay like Premo, Kato, Fimo, Sculpey, Cernit) is not to have the clay too close to the top of the flame. The heat directly over the flame will be much hotter than the areas beside it. So if your votive candle holder had a large enough space above the candle, it would be okay. (Paper doesn’t burn unless it’s really close to a direct flame until the famous 451 degrees Fahrenheit, and polymer clays won’t actually burn till they reach 385 though you wouldn’t want them up even as high as 200 or so because you might smell the normal smell of curing polymer clay.)
We do make lots of candle holders with polymer clay though, from the ones to hold votive candles in, to actual taper candleholders. Those can be made from solid clay only, but more often they’re made over some kind of armature at least part way.
If the object is to see the light shine through the holder with a votive candle in it, you could just cover a glass container with clay, then cut holes in it where the windows and doors are, leaving some areas for ventilation somewhere (in a “roof” you’d put on it made from clay or metal or whatever). And if you were using polymer clay, you could instead use a translucent (or colored translucent) clay in those areas, or even use a clay that has some translucent in it naturally, which when thin will let the light shine through—even some of the dark colors of polymer clay are somewhat or very translucent.
If you’re interested in checking out votive candle holders made with polymer clay (in various ways), take a look at this page at my polymer clay “encyclopedia” site:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/covering.htm
(…under the “Glass” category, click on the subcategory called “Votives and Light Shining Through”
…and perhaps also click on “Nightlights, Lamps, Screens” in case you’re interested in that type of set up)
P.S. If you’re interested in making small “houses” from polymer clay, that could be done in various ways too and there’s info on this page:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/houses_structures_gingerbread.htm
HTH,
Diane B.
Floral Candle Holder, Candle Holder Centerpiece, Tealight Candle Holders
