DIY Mushroom Cap Bowls: Trendy Fall Decor Tutorial with Air-Dry Clay

As the air turns crisp and leaves start to paint the landscape in rich hues, it’s the perfect time to embrace the charm of fall decor. And what could be more on-trend this season than the whimsical allure of mushrooms? In this DIY tutorial, I’ll guide you through the creation of enchanting Mushroom Cap Bowls using air-dry clay. These delightful little bowls, reminiscent of mushroom caps with their intricate lines and organic form, are the epitome of rustic elegance.

Let’s bring the magic of the forest into your home, adding a touch of cozy charm to your fall decor.

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How To Make Air-Dry Clay Mushroom Cap Bowls

Mushrooms are everywhere this season! They have been a hot trend since the end of last year. This Fall you will be seeing mushroom decor in all of the craft stores and online from the big home decor sites.

If you are like me, you love to embrace the latest trends but don’t want to invest much cash to do it!! So I have a budget-friendly and handcrafted way to create your own mushroom decor to use for your Fall decorating and beyond the season.

Materials You’ll Need

• Air-Dry Clay
• Various Round Bowls
• Rolling Pin
• Clay Tools (You can use the point of a skewer or toothpick too)
• Plastic Wrap
• Paint

Step-by-Step Tutorial

What Air-Dry Clay To Use

I’m using terracotta air-dry clay to show you how the terracotta mushroom bowls look when dried in case you want a natural look that isn’t painted for your bowls.

If planning to paint your mushroom cap bowls then you can use white or terracotta air-dry clay. I really like the Crayola brand of air-dry clay. I’ve used both the white and now the terracotta and I find that it is very easy to work with and roll out and more importantly it seems strong once it is dried. Plus, it costs less than some of the other air-dry clay brands.

Step 2: Before Starting

You will want to prepare your workspace by either covering your table with craft paper or a silicone mat since we will be rolling out the clay.

Today I’m using a roll of brown craft paper that I use to cover my kitchen island when I’m crafting. When working with clay I often use a silicone baking mat, they are fantastic and the clay doesn’t stick to it.

You will also need to take a look in your cabinets for round bowls to act as molds to shape the mushroom caps. I’m going to make 3 sizes: small, medium, & large to show you different examples of the project. Get creative! I am using a cereal bowl, a vintage bowl, and a small pinch bowl.

Step 3: Shaping The Base

Now it is time to get working! Grab a hunk of the air-dry clay and place it on your work surface. Use a rolling pin to start flattening out your piece of clay. It is going to depend on the size of the bowls chosen as to how much clay you will need to use for each bowl.

Aim for about 1/4 to 3/8 inch in thickness for the clay. If it’s too thin they are apt to break.

Once you have the clay rolled out use one of your bowls as a template for the shape of the mushroom cap. Just place a bowl on top of the clay and push it down to make an indent, kind of like making cookies with a cookie cutter.

Once you remove the bowl, just trim off the excess clay. You can use a plastic knife or clay tool to remove the clay.

Now take the bowl that you just used to make the round mushroom cap shape and line it with plastic wrap.

Then move your circle of clay off of the work surface and press it inside the bowl to form the rounded mushroom cap shape. Push the clay down and use your fingers to form it to the edges of the bowl.

Grab a small cup of water. Dip your fingertips into it and use your wet fingers to smooth out the clay’s rough edges and any knicks or bumps in the clay. Clay is very forgiving and most things can be smoothed out. Have a paper towel handy to wipe your fingers, it gets a bit messy.

Step 4: Adding Mushroom GIlls

Now it’s time to add the mushroom cap gills. For this, you can use either a clay tool, a wooden pointy-tipped skewer, a toothpick, or anything else that you can use to make a straight line in the clay.

Now, I don’t want you to fret about making perfectly straight lines or all of that! This is supposed to be fun and unique.

Don’t cut through all of the clay, just make distinct lines in the clay for detail.

• Make a small dot in the center
• Start from the center and pull to the edge with your skewer.
• Now make a line directly opposite of that line.
• Keep working your way around the clay making sets of lines, one side and then the opposite side. This keeps it more natural looking.

When you are done wet your fingertips if you need to smooth anything else out that you might have missed. You can even give your edges more shape if you would like.

Step 5: Drying

So once you have as many mushroom caps made as you want to make it is time to let the air-dry clay dry. This is why we lined the bowls with plastic wrap so the clay doesn’t stick.

The clay drying process and how much time it’s going to take is totally going to depend on the weather and temperature where you are. Plan on a couple of days for the clay to completely harden.

But after the first day, the clay had set up enough that I could remove them from the bowls that were holding the shape.

So on the second day, I removed the plastic wrap and just set the mushroom cap bowls on a tray to complete drying.

It was very humid here so it took 3.5 days for the clay to harden.

Step 6: Painting

Now that the mushroom cap bowls are dried it’s time to finish them up. If you are using terracotta clay and want to keep that look then I would suggest using a clear topcoat to protect them.

But I am going to paint the set of mushroom cap bowls that I made. I want to make them have a Fall-ish vibe and plan to use them in my Fall decorating.

So I opted for my favorite metallic acrylic paint FolkArt Metallic in Antique Copper. It is such a rich shade and looks fabulous with earthy natural decor. I’ve used it on quite a few decorating DIY projects in the past.

My suggestion would be to paint the bottoms of the clay bowls, let dry, and then turn them over and paint the insides.

Once the paint was dry, I brushed a liquid antique wax over the entire bowl. Then I used a paper towel to wipe the excess wax off. The dark wax will stick in the grooves of the mushroom cap and really bring out the details.

Decorative Possibilities: Displaying Mushroom Cap Bowls

Now that you made the cute mushroom cap bowls, what do you do with them you ask?? Well, let me show you a few ways to use and display the clay bowls in your home.

Here I used the smallest mushroom bowl and added a few of my DIY Felt Acorns to it and added it to a Fall vignette.

Another Fall idea was to fill one of the mushroom cap bowls with small dried pods (Hobby Lobby Fall dept.) and pop it on top of a couple of vintage children’s books for height. Perfect for adding to a Fall display on a table.

An all-season idea, use it as a trinket dish to hold your jewelry. The bowl is the perfect size to hold rings or earrings.

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What’s fun about this project is that you can customize it to fit your own style depending on what color paint you choose. Light, dark, metallic…all of them will work! Just have fun and be creative.

If you make this project, please let me know! I’d love to see them and be able to share them with the Cottage on Bunker Hill community. Send me a message here and I’ll get in touch with you.

xo, Jennifer

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