How To Make a DIY Incense Burner

In this 6 minute pottery tutorial, Crockd’s resident artist will show YOU how to make your own "heart face" DIY clay incense burner.

Experience: Beginner
Crockd Kit: Pottery Kit
Extra Materials:
✓ Rolling pin, Mess Mat or any equivalent tool to flatten clay
✓ Bowl or cup of water for your fingers
✓ Small paint brush to smoothing your piece

Transcript:

Hey guys, I'm Montana, the resident artist at Crockd. Today I am going to show you how to make a clay face incense burner like this in just four simple steps. First be sure to like and subscribe and then we'll get started.

To get your station ready you'll need just one bag of clay, your pottery tools, a rolling pin or any equivalent tool, a bowl or cup of water for your fingers, and if you don't want your clay directly on your surface setting down a chopping board works great. Feel free to also keep a small paintbrush handy for later.

To get started, tear off a third of your clay brick, seal the larger bit back up in your bag, and then warm your clay up by smacking it against the palms of your hands. When you're ready, start rolling that
clay into a ball either on your surface or in your hands. Then use your rolling pin to roll the clay into an even slab. If you don't have a rolling pin, you can use a glass jar or any equivalent tool.

Rotate your piece of clay occasionally and continue rolling it out until you have a slab of clay that's about a quarter of an inch or three fourths of a centimetre thick.

You can smooth your slab of clay with your fingers or the rounded edge of your butter knife shaped tool. Then, use your butter knife shape tool to carve out whatever shape you'd like for your incense burner. Keep your hands steady and use your forearm to guide your tool in the direction you want it to go. Use your finger to smooth the edges.

Using a chunk of clay from your carvings, roll out one more small slab of clay. This slab should be thinner than your first slab. Carve a circle or oval from your second slab that can fit comfortably on the first. This circle slab will be the face of your incense burner.

Pause here until you're all done smoothing and carving out that slab of clay and then we'll move on to step two.

Now take a really small chunk of clay, just enough for a little ball the size of a pea. Then roll your little piece of clay up and down in your hands or on your surface to create a really small chunky coil. Taper that coil by rolling it more on one side and trim as needed so you have a little clay triangle to use as a nose. Score the back of the nose as well as the little section of your circle slab that the nose will attach to by drawing little x's or hashtags with your spiked needle tool.

Dab the scored areas with water, attach the nose, and blend it into your slab of clay with your spoon shaped paddle tool and your fingers.

To create lips, grab another little chunk of clay and roll it up and down into a tiny coil for your top lip. Use your fingers to trim and taper the sides of the lip as needed. Score your circle slab, dab the scored areas with water, and blend with your fingers and paddle tool. Blend any excess clay up
into the nose or down into the face.

For the bottom lip repeat those same steps of rolling a little coil, scoring, attaching and blending. Smooth your little clay nose, lips, and face as much as needed with your fingers or tools. If your clay is feeling dry you can dip your fingers or tools in your water bowl.

You can pause here until the nose and mouth of your incense burner are all complete and then we'll move on to step three.
Next roll out another pea-sized ball of clay then cut it in half so you have two little heart-shaped pieces of clay for the eyes of your incense burner. Score the areas of clay that you'd like the eyes to attach to dab the scored areas with water and attach. Blend those eyes in with your spoon-shaped paddle tool or your fingers, pulling or pushing any excess clay up into the nose or down into the face.

Continue to smooth with your fingers and if you have a small paintbrush handy, this is super useful for smoothing any hard to get into areas of your little face. Pause here until you're all done with step three and then we'll move on to our final step.

Now to attach your face to your incense burner use your needle tool to score the back of the face and
the appropriate section of the incense burner slab. Dab the stored areas with water, attach, and blend with your paddle tool and your fingers.

Then using the skinnier end of your needle tool you can add little punctures for nostrils as well as the little hole to hold your incense. Be sure to push the needle tool into your piece at whatever angle matches how you'd like your incense to sit.

Smooth as needed and then let your piece dry.

Thank you guys so much for watching, be sure to like and subscribe, and let us know what you want to learn next.