As a cake decorator for the past 10+ years you won’t see me wearing rings ever. Don’t get me wrong, I own them, but they end up on the kitchen counter more often than my fingers. Well I have come up with a solution…a sunshine and sprinkle trinket tray! This trinket tray can hold all kinds of jewellery and looks great doing it (if I do say so myself).

This trinket tray is perfect for holding your rings and earrings, you can hang them off the little rays of sunshine, or store them in the tray itself…cute! I keep mine beside my bed but you can keep this in the bathroom or your dresser. Polymer clay is very hardy so you don’t need to worry about it getting wet.

Things you will need to make this trinket tray:

2 colours of polymer clay. You can get these from Kmart or online or in craft stores like Spotlight.
Glitter (optional)
Rolling pin
Small knife or scalpel (this is my Scalpel from Kmart)
Super glue, or craft glue, or hot glue gun
An oven and a lined baking tray

Polymer Clay Sunshine and Sprinkles Trinket Tray

This polymer clay sunshine and sprinkles trinket tray is the perfect jewellery holder!

Prep Time45 mins

Total Time1 hr 15 mins

Yield:

Materials

1 packet coloured polymer clay any colour of your choice
1 packet white polymer clay or a different colour of choice
white glitter optional
rolling pin
cutting board
super glue or craft glue/hot glue gun
baking tray lined with baking paper

Instructions

NOTE: Before you start you will need to condition your polymer clays. This just means working the clay in your hands until it forms a soft ball. Some brands like the Premo brand I have tagged above are quite hard when they come straight out of the packet and require a bit more muscle to soften them up. Other brands like the Kmart clays are quite soft and easy to work with straight away. The harder clays will be easier to work with once you have softened them but both will have great outcomes!
I didn't weigh the clay in this tutorial so you will be in charge of how large your trinket tray is. You can make it as large or small as you like.
Using your coloured clay that is going to be the base of your trinket tray, roll the clay into an even ball.
On your cutting board, use your rolling pin to roll the ball of clay out into a circle shape. This doesn't need to be perfect as we are going with the "rustic" feel here. Roll the circle out to approximately 5mm thick.
For the sprinkles: Roll a thin snake of white clay out. The snake should only be about 3-5mm wide. Once you have an even snake, use your rolling pin to flatten the snake out into a rectangle of sorts. This will form your sprinkles.
Cut off the rough end first and don't use this bit. Then take your sharp knife (I used a scalpel) and cut thin 0.5-1mm slices from the flattened snake. These are your sprinkles!
Place your sprinkles in a random pattern across the surface of the coloured clay that is the base of your tray.
Use your rolling pin to roll over the sprinkles to flatten them into the coloured clay. This is just to neaten things up a bit. As much as I try to be "rustic" you can't take the perfectionist out of me!
Using your fingers, pinch up the sides of the coloured clay tray. You and your fingers are in charge of how high you would like to make the sides of the trinket tray.
For the sun: Roll a thick snake of white clay, about 2-3cm thick. It should be a little bit longer than the width of your trinket tray.
Form a semi circle shape with the large snake and use your rolling pin to flatten it out, being sure to keep it in this semi circle shape. My semi circle was about 3cm wide. This forms the shape of the sun.
NOTE: check that your sun fits well with the size of your trinket tray. You may want to make it larger or smaller before you keep going.
Clean up the inner edge of the sun using your knife/scalpel.
Repeat this for the outer edge of the sun and cut the rough bottom edges off also. You now have a neat semi circle.
To create the rays of sunshine you will need to mark up where you want to cut using the back edge of your knife/scalpel. First mark up the top middle ray of sunshine, working your way down to the bottom edge. You want to centre the top middle ray (because perfectionist).
Use your knife/scalpel to cut all the way through and remove the excess clay.
OPTIONAL: This step is optional but I am partial to a bit of white glitter. I covered my white sun with glitter and used my rolling pin to gently press the glitter into the clay on both sides. Dust off the remaining glitter.
Ready to bake: Bake your clay per the temperatures and times on the packaging. But most clays will be between 100-120°C and roughly 30 minutes. A nice low and slow bake.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.
Once cool, super glue the sun into the centre of your tray and voila you are done!