DIY Non-Firing Clay and Plaster

Soft Play Dough

1 cup cornstarch
5 tbsps coconut hair conditioner

Sensitive skin cream can be substituted for the conditioner

Place 1 cup of cornflour into a bowl then add 5 tablespoons of hair conditioner.

Make sure to mix each spoonful in one at a time until the final one, and then put your hands in to knead it into a ball. It shouldn’t be sticky but if it is for some reason, then take it out and continue to roll and knead it on a surface with cornflour sprinkled onto it, until it is right.

If it is too dry then dip your fingertips into some conditioner and knead again. Doesn't store well.

Salt Play Dough

1 C. All Purpose flour

1/2 C. Salt

2 tsp. Cream of Tartar

1 C. Water

1 Tbsp. Canola oil

Wilton gel food coloring (optional)

Add food coloring to the water. Mix ingredients in a medium size saucepan. Heat on medium while stirring. Stir until it begins to stick. Put dough on counter and knead. Stores for 6 months in an airtight container.

No-Cook Salt Dough

2 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup salt
2 tablespoons cream of tartar
Up to 1-1/2 cups boiling water
Wilton gel food coloring (optional)
few drops glycerine (optional- adds more shine)

Mix the flour, salt, cream of tartar and oil in a large mixing bowl.

Add food coloring TO the boiling water then into the dry ingredients (color optional).

Stir continuously until it becomes a sticky, combined dough.

Add the glycerine (optional).

Allow it to cool down then take it out of the bowl and knead it vigorously for a couple of minutes until all of the stickiness has gone. This is the most important part of the process, so keep at it until it’s the perfect consistency!
If it remains a little sticky then add a touch more flour until just right.

Stores for 6 months in an airtight container.

Sand Dough

1-1/2 C. All Purpose flour

2 C. Sand

1-1/4 C. Salt

1 C. Warm water

Mix together the sand, flour and salt in a large bowl and slowly add the warm water , mixing as you go with a large spoon. This is a dough recipe and as with all doughs, the measurements of dry ingredients can really make a difference to the stickiness/ dryness of the finished dough, so add the water carefully and just balance it out if it feels a little too sticky by adding some more flour or sand.

Once it is all combined, take it out of the bowl and begin to knead it on a lightly floured surface. It will take less than a minute to come together into a soft and pliable ball very similar in feel and consistency to play dough or salt dough.

Proceed to roll, cut and air dry the sand clay in the same way as salt dough from this point forward.

Put finished pieces into the oven set to 250 F and let them dry out for around 4 hours. The sand dough will dry hard at differing times depending on your oven and the thickness of the dough.

Stores for 6 months in an airtight container.

Oven Bake Clay

1 cup Corn starch
2 cups Baking soda
1-1/4 cups cold water

Wilton gel food coloring (optional)

You can add food coloring to the water before cooking the ingredients. You can also divide the clay and knead in food coloring.

Non-stick pot
Wooden spoon
Med-large bowl
Damp cloth, lid or plate

Combine ingredients in pot and stir until smooth.

Cook over low-medium flame, stirring constantly, until the mixture resembles mashed potatoes.

Remove from heat and let cool in a separate container either covered with a damp towel or mostly covered with a plate or lid.

Sculpt. If necessary, use a bit of water to stick bits of dough together. Be careful, though, as the softness of this dough makes it prone to dissolve.

Allow to dry, about 2 days depending on the size and thickness of your finished piece. You can speed up drying in a 150 F oven, cracked open, or a 350 F oven turned off.

Sand Oven Bake Clay

1-1/2 Cups Sand
1-1/2 Cups Cornstarch 
2 Cups Baking Soda
1-1/2 Cups Water

Mix all the ingredients in an old medium saucepan. Heat over a med-high heat while continually stirring until the mixture thickens and resembles a thick dough – similar to Mashed Potato.

Empty the dough onto a sheet of baking paper and allow to cool under a damp tea towel. Once the dough is cool enough to touch you can kneed it until smooth then replace the tea towel. Always store the dough under a damp tea towel when not in use to prevent it from drying out prematurely.

Place items on a drying rack, then immediately bake at 212 F for two hours, allow the creations time to cool IN the oven before removing to prevent the hot clay from cracking when exposed to cooler temps.

Cold Porcelain

1 C. Cornstarch 

1 C. Elmer's Glue All

2 Tbsp. Lemon juice

2 Tbsp. Olive oil

Place one level cup of starch into a microwave safe bowl. Pour glue into starch. Add lemon juice and olive oil.

Slowly mix all of the ingredients together until you achieve one cohesive mixture. Continue stirring the mixture for approximately five minutes, or until the majority of the lumps have disappeared.

Once lumps have disappeared, place the bowl into your microwave and heat for 15 seconds. Remove the bowl from the microwave and stir continuously for 1 minute. Repeat the 15 second heating/1 minute stirring technique eight times.

After you have heated and stirred your mixture 8 times, sprinkle starch or hand lotion over your work surface. At this time, also apply hand lotion or Shea butter on your hands so to avoid dough sticking to your fingers and hands.

Knead the dough for approximately ten minutes or until it's no longer sticky.

Wrap the clay in plastic wrap and place in an airtight container. Allow clay to rest for 24 hours.

Unwrap the clay and knead. Well made cold porcelain clay should be easy to mold and capable of sculpting very thin and delicate designs.

To tint your clay, simply apply acrylic paint right onto clay and knead until paint has mixed thoroughly with the clay. 

The more paint you use, the deeper or saturated the color will be. However as most paints contain water, it's recommended to add the paint a little bit at a time to avoid your clay becoming sticky. Try tinting with pigments.

Once your clay is tinted, it's ready to be used. Mold your clay in desired shapes and allow to air dry. Clay will be completely dry in 24 hours, but it might take longer depending upon the thickness or size of the piece.

To stick pieces together, you may need to apply a little water to each piece. Lubricating your piece with water while sculpting can help you a great deal.

An alternative to pre-tinting the clay is to paint it once the clay is dry. To do this, simply allow clay to dry completely and use acrylic paint as desired.

Paper Clay

1-1/4 C. Angel Soft toilet paper, wet
1 C. Drywall Joint Compound, premixed regular tub

DAP brand doesn't work

3/4 C. Elmer's Glue All

1/2 C. All Purpose flour

2 Tbsp. Mineral oil or baby oil

Large bowl with high sides

Immersion blender

Air-tight container. 

The recipe makes approximately 1 quart of paper clay.

Fill a high-sided bowl with warm water. 

Remove the toilet paper from the roll and throw it into the water. Push down on the paper to make sure all of it gets wet.

Pick up the paper and squeeze out as much water as you can. Pour the water out of the bowl and put your paper mass back in.

Break the paper into chunks about 1″ across. This will allow your mixer to move around the pieces and break them apart.

Add all the ingredients to the bowl and mix, using an electric mixer. The mixer will pull the fibers of the toilet paper apart and turn it into pulp. 

Continue to mix for at least 3 minutes to make sure all the paper has been mixed in with the other ingredients. If you still see some lumps, use a fork or your fingers to break them apart, and then mix some more.

Stores for 5 days in an airtight container. For indoor use only.

Paper Crete

1 gallon Water

1 Newspaper (Sunday Oklahoman), torn into 2" strips

2 quarts Portland cement

1 quart Pearlite or vermiculite (optional sparkle)

2, 5 gallon buckets

Quart size scoop (milk jug)

Paint mixer

This is a basic recipe that will make enough papercrete for two planters approximately 6-8″ deep, 12″ in diameter and 1/2 to 3/4″ thick. 

Start with approximately one gallon of water in a 3 to 5 gallon bucket.Tear a newspaper into 2″ strips. Push as much paper into the water as you can while still leaving an inch to 2 inches of water above the paper. Leave the paper to soak for at least 24 hours. Longer is better. Mixing is easier when the paper is soaked longer. 48 hours is good.

Next, using a paint mixer attachment on an electric drill ( not a cordless one), mix the paper and water into a pulp. The mixer should move fairly easily around in the mixture. If you are putting a lot of effort into this or your drill sounds like it is laboring, add up to a quart or liter of water and try again. At some point you will probably need to get your hands in the bucket to pull up paper from the sides and bottom that is not getting mixed in properly. The key to making good papercrete is getting the paper pulp to the right consistency.

When the mix looks like lumpy oatmeal and you can still see just a bit of water pooling in the top when you stop mixing you can stop and test your mixture. Take a small handful of pulp and gently squeeze it into a ball in the palms of your hands. Water should easily and freely be dripping from your hands as you do this. When you open your hand the ball should keep its shape and not show signs of crumbling or separating into sections. If the ball will not hold its shape and is flattening out on its own the mixture is too wet. 

Compact the paper in the bucket and pour off some of the excess water. If the ball appears to be cracking apart, add water and mix again. Keep track of how much water you are adding or subtracting to adjust the starting amount for next time around. Now form the ball into a patty. Patt it a bit to smooth the top and edges. It should all hold together with very little separation.

Eventually, when you have worked out the paper to water part of the recipe, you will be able to go forward mixing the papercrete right in the same bucket. The first time or two I recommend measuring the paperpulp into a second bucket with a scoop of some sort. 

Put three quarts of paper pulp (push the pulp into the scoop a bit to release any air pockets), two quarts of portland cement and one quart of pearlite into the second bucket. This is the basic 3-2-1 recipe starter recipe. 

Mix. Again, if you are really laboring over this add water. Test the mixture. This time the mixture should form a ball with only a very little bit of water dripping from it. It should behave as with the first tests – hold its shape and make a nice smooth patty with very little separation at the edges. Add water if it’s cracking; add a little portland cement if it is not keeping a ball shape. Now try the mixture in a form.

The form needs a release agent to make removing the dried container easy. Any kind of cooking oil works great which is easily applied with a 2″ brush. Form an even layer of papercrete in the bottom of your form about 1/2 -3/4″ think and start building up on the side of the form. Just do a small area and then wait a minute or two to observe. If the sides sink or slump your mixture is still just a little too wet.

Allow to dry throroughly. Remove from form. Suitable for outdoor use.

Cobb (Adobe) Clay

Clay mud

Dry grass

This formula can be used for making ovens and dwellings similar to Adobe.

If you are using your survival cememnt as a mortar, create a mixture that is thinner and wetter so that it will fill each and every crevasse and joint.

Cut your grasses based on the length of the item for which you will be using your cement. If you are building a large structure such as a kiln, or cementing over a shelter foundation the grasses can be left much longer and placed so they run all in one direction as opposed to haphazardly throughout the mud. In this way they act almost like re-bar.

If you do not gather enough grass and have to go harvest more mid-making, cover and seal your existing survival cement as best you can while you are gone so it will retain the proper moisture content.

If you must add water to help rehydrate your mud, do so a LITTLE AT A TIME. It's much easier to add more water than to try to re-create the proper consistancy once the mud is soupy.

Find a source of mud with as high a clay content as possible 'If you smush some of the mud into a ball and it retains it's shape, you should be good.) and fill up a bucket with it — more if you are planning a large project.

Harvest a big armload of grasses, preferably dry — more if you are planning a large project — and cut them into lengths of about 6-12 inches.

Hydrate to your clay to a point where it will squish, not run, easily through your fingers. The consistency must be wet enough that it can be molded, but not so watery that it will not hold it's shape. Wetter mixes are good for mortar between stones, firmer for making bricks and solid survival cement structures, firmer still for wrapping food.

Spread a tarp on the ground and place the bucket of mud and the grasses at the edges of the tarp.

Dump the mud out of the bucket into the center of the tarp and place about half of your grass on top of the mud.

Get barefoot, and begin to stomp the grasses into the mud. Or, if you're not inclined to get your feet dirty, fold a corner of the tarp over top and stomp on that.

Once the mud/grass mixture has spread out and flattened, step off the tarp and fold it in half, turning the mixture back onto itself. Do this a couple of times until it has formed back into a sort of ball.

Add the remaining grass and start stomping once again. Continue to repeat this process until the grass has been thoroughly combined into the mud. You want the grass to be between 40%-60% of your mixture, depending on the project.

Shape into bricks and begin your project immediately. Once it begins to dry out the mud will harden and be difficult to mold.

Clay Plaster

15 gallons Mason's Sand

7 gallons Clay, divided

Water, enough to make clay frothy

2 gallons Wheat flour, cooked

1 gallon Cow manure, aged

1/2 gallon Cattail fluff

Sift sand using a window screen. Spread tarps on ground. Dump fifteen gallons of sifted sand onto tarp. Fill two or three five-gallon buckets with clay. Use a hole auger with paint paddle to mix water into clay buckets. Sift seven gallons of frothy clay through 1/8″ hardware cloth (screen) onto the tarp. Stomp and roll until homogenous. Add two gallons cooked wheat flour. Add one gallon aged cow manure. Stomp and roll until homogenous. Add a half gallon of cattail fluff. Stomp and roll until homogenous. Pre-soak the work area 30 to 90 minutes ahead. Re-wet a small working area. Smear on plaster with hand or a trowel. Smooth plaster with trowel. Polish the plaster.

Lime Plaster, Exterior 

3 parts Mason's Sand

1 part Hydrated Lime

Mason Stain (optional)

Because lime plasters react with carbon dioxide from the air in order to harden, you can easily keep the calcium hydroxide form of lime in its putty form indefinitely by storing it with an inch or so of water on top of it (or in a completely air-tight container).  This effectively prevents the lime from getting into contact with air and thus prevents curing until you are ready to use it.

Lime putty increases plasticity and workability the longer it is mixed.  So the longer you mix it, the creamier it gets. Mix in a mortar mixer (not a cement mixer) for at least 20-30 minutes.  Only add water (a small amount) if your mix is extremely thick.  The plaster should be stiff but should spread easily, like cream cheese.  Allowing the mixed lime plaster to sit overnight improves workability, but remember to remix the plaster again before using.

To prepare strawbale walls for lime plaster, first shape your walls exactly how you would like them to look once plastered.  It is time-consuming to build up the lime plaster to fill in large voids (since it must be applied in thin coats).  Next, install expanded lath (not chicken wire) to cover any slick surfaces, such as wood...anything that is too smooth for plaster to hold onto.  Make sure your lath bridges across the wood and at least 6" into the straw so you don't get a crack right where the lath ends.  Do NOT use lath over all of the strawbale, unless you live in a seismic region and your code requires this.

 

Be sure to dampen your walls down well before applying each coat of lime plaster.  For the first coat, this means soaking the strawbales until they are damp and the straw is pliable.  For each subsequent coat, soak the wall down the day before you will plaster, again the morning of plastering, and throughout the day keep the wall damp as you work.  Otherwise the wall steals moisture out of your plaster quickly, and can pop the bond that holds your plaster on the wall.

Use 3 coats of lime plaster for exterior walls or showers.  You can use 1 or 2 coats for decorative interior finishes.  The first coat can be up to 5/8" thick if it is applied to strawbale, otherwise each coat should be a maximum of 3/8" thick.  Any thicker and the lime cannot absorb carbon dioxide adequately for curing to fully take place.

 

I apply the plaster with a wooden float to create a well-shaped wall that has decent texture.  For the finish coat, I smooth the final surface using a flexible pool float.  You can continue to buff or polish the lime as it is curing for a very smooth sheen.  There are many highly refined finishes that can be achieved with simple lime plaster.

 

Score the surface of each coat (except the finish plaster) to create lots of surface area for the next coat of plaster to key into.  And allow at least 7 to 10 days between coats to give each ample time to cure.

 

Do NOT use lime plaster over clay plasters for exteriors in wet climates.  The clay substrate shrinks and swells depending on moisture content.  The cured lime cannot shrink and swell with the clay and so it will be more susceptible to cracking when used over clay plaster in a wet climate.  Lime can be used over solid clay walls, such as cob & adobe, because there is so much more clay present to absorb ambient air moisture without measurable swelling.

You want the lime to cure...NOT dry out.  That means it needs to react with carbon dioxide from the air before all of the moisture evaporates.  If it dries out before it has cured (and converted into calcium carbonate), the resulting plaster will be weak and possibly crumbly.  So protect the plaster from wind and sun until it has cured, and it helps to dampen the wall daily as it is curing.

 

Do not apply exterior lime stucco if there is any risk of freezing, otherwise moisture in the plaster can freeze, expand, and cause critical failure of the plaster. The temperature needs to be above 40 F for at least a week to keep the curing process going. 

Parisian Plaster, Interior

1 part flat latex paint

1 dollop wheat (flour) paste

Plaster of Paris

Splash of Milk

Stucco knife

Wheat Flour Paste

3 Tbsp All Purpose wheat flour

1/4 cup water, room temperature

3/4 cup water for boiling

Optional:

Additional 2 cups water (if using a double boiler)

Sugar or Elmer's Glue All (to strengthen a weak batch)

Copper sulphate (a preservative and bug deterrent)

Pour 3/4 cups of water into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Whisk the flour and cool water together. Stir the flour mixture into the boiling water while stirring constantly. Continue stirring until thick and smooth. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely. If the paste isn't sticky enough, add sugar or glue. 

Reheat unused paste after each project to sterilize it. Pour a little water on top of the paste to prevent mold. If the paste is sufficiently cool, the water will sit on top. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Mixing the plaster:

Mix 1 part flat paint and 1 part water. Add a dollop of wheat paste. Mix in plaster of paris little by little as if you were mixing cake batter till smooth. Finish by adding a splash of milk to keep the plaster from hardening too quickly. 

Only mix a little at a time at first till you get the hang of the time it takes to harden and how fast you can get it up. Use a real stucco knife imported from Italy. You will not be able to get it smooth enough with any other tool.

Venetian Plaster, Interior

2 quarts Lime Putty

2 quarts Marble Dust

2 Tbsp. Black Olive oil soap

1-1/2 cups Linseed oil

3/4 cup Oxide pigment, (liquid lime proof pigment)

Scoop lime putty into a plastic bucket. Add marble dust and stir with a paint stick. Melt olive oil soap and add to plaster. Pour in linseed oil while stirring. Add pigment when it begins to form a plaster consistency. Mix in 1 teaspoon of water at a time if the pigment doesn't mix well. Use immediately. If the mixture begins to stiffen, add a little water. Do not make more than you can use at one time.

Moroccan Plaster (Tadelakt), Waterproof

Marrakech Lime

Water

Mason Stain (optional)

Black Olive oil soap

Beeswax

Carnauba Wax

Limonene

Cedar trowel

Finishing trowel

Tadelakt is a Moroccan lime plaster technique that produces a waterproof, smooth, lustrous surface that resembles marble. Moroccans have been utilizing tadelakt for thousands of years in their bathhouses. It was originally used as a finish that allowed them to store water in cisterns. It is waterproof, mold and mildew resistant, and can be waxed for protection. Never use bleach or harsh cleaners. Only clean with black olive oil soap to recondition it. It cannot be repaired if chipped. The entire section has to be removed and replastered.

Mold or cast a bathtub or sink with ShapeCrete (available at Home Depot) and apply Moroccan plaster to make it waterproof.

Apply a lime plaster substrate to the surface and score it in a random pattern vertically and horizontally.

Sieve lime through 0.5mm mesh. Add enough water to make a plaster. Wet the lime substrate. Apply 1/8" thick Moroccan plaster with a cedar trowel. Allow to dry. Apply a second layer of Moroccan plaster over it the same thickness. Allow to dry again. Compress with a metal trowel.

After compression, micro fissures start to show up. During the burnishing, rub the stone along the lines of the cracks to close them and maintain the waterproof surface.

Burnish with a flat polished stone. Rub olive oil soap into the plaster. Burshish again. Repeat this process 5 more times with increasingly concentrated amounts of soap. Allow to cure completely.

Melt beeswax and carnauba wax together. Add limonene to make it liquid when it cools. Apply over cured plaster.