Ceramic Gifts

What is one thing someone could always find a place for that is probably one of the simplest gifts you could ever give? Ceramic gifts! They are extremely easy to find and the best part is you can buy them pre-made and painted. If you rather be more adventurous however, you can buy an unfinished product from a ceramics dealer and you can finish them yourself. All you need are some basic tools and you can start making your ceramic gifts!

Some simple tools you will need to make these gifts are a ceramic scraper (looks like a dentist tooth scraper tool somewhat), some small paint brushes for brushing dust away and off the ceramic, some brushes for painting and of course, some ceramic paints. You'll also need some water for rinsing and towels for drying your tools or any mess you might make in the process of your ceramic gift making.

First you will want to clean up the ceramic by scraping away the rough edges from the mould casting so that the ceramic is smooth where the cast edges were. Then you can start brushing off the dust from the ceramic gifts and prepare for painting with the proper brushes (not the dusting ones.) After dusting and painting them, you then will need to take your ceramic gifts to a ceramics kiln for firing at the ceramics dealer. Firing is the process of heating ceramics so they can dry and also to allow the ceramic paint to stick to the ceramic properly. You can also use non-ceramic paints if you like and just apply varnish as a final coat to your ceramics.

Ceramic gifts can be simple to clean up and paint or difficult depending on the complexity of the ceramic gifts you pick out and want to do as a "from scratch" project. If you want to paint your own though, you will have to buy paints obviously which will be a little extra expense, but will let you be a little more personal with the gift you give. It will have your personal touch and your ceramic gift will probably take on a lot more sentimental value if they know you painted it for them and spent that little extra amount of time.