DIY Polymer Clay Emoji Backpack Tags
Make these fun emoji backpack tags and show your mood of the day. Made with easy-to-use polymer clay, they’re a fun way for kids of all ages to express themselves. Let’s get started.
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Polymer Clay Crafts for Kids
Clay crafts are great for kids, young and old. For younger children, working clay helps to build finger strength. Older children can focus more on detailed clay work with tools.
These emoji backpack tags are a fun polymer clay craft for kids and would make a fun sleepover craft idea for older kids. Here at Ruffles and Rain Boots, we often make small clay charms for necklaces, play figurines, or gifts.
Some of our fun polymer clay friends:
Tips for Making These Backpack Charms
- Don’t roll the clay out too thin or they will break. We made these twice…
- Sanding the clay after it is baked removes anything which attached itself to the polymer clay.
- Paint pens are the easiest for small hands to manipulate, but you can also give them markers.
- Don’t forget to seal these backpack charms to preserve their adorable emoji faces.
How to Make Emoji Backpack Tags
Below are a written tutorial and a video tutorial for you to make your own emoji backpack tags. If you’re creating a back to school playlist on YouTube, here is our emoji backpack tags video there.
Emoji Backpack Tags
Make these fun emoji backpack tags and show your mood of the day. Made with easy-to-use polymer clay, they’re a fun way for kids of all ages to express themselves. Let’s get started.
Materials
- Light brown and dark brown clay bundle and yellow clay
- Parchment paper (for baking each emoji charm + one for smoothing the top)
- Clay glaze to seal
- Jump rings, jewelry chain, medium clip
- Paint pens (these are my favorite) or acrylic paints
- Optional: fine sandpaper
- Optional (but recommended): 4 popsicle sticks, 2 on each side to keep clay a consistent thickness
Tools
- straw or skewer
- Clay Tools to work it (or you can use a razor, butter knife, etc.)
Instructions
- Grab a picture from the web to use as templates for High-5 and poop and size down to your perfect backpack charm size. Ours ended up being just about an inch each.
- Be sure to add a piece of parchment paper for each emoji so that you can simply move it to a baking sheet. Roll out the clay. Using a template or a cutter, define the shape. Add a hole at the top for the charm. For complex designs like High-5, lay the template on the clay and trace lightly. Once traced, go over it without the paper template.
- Create a hole in the top of the backpack tag for the jump ring. Use a piece of parchment to smooth out the top, rounding down the edges gently. It gives it a more finished look.
- Bake for an hour – you want them to be flexible because they’ll be banged around. Tip: cool inside the oven for at least 10-minutes.
- Once cool, sand and paint faces and accents on your emojis. Don’t forget to protect them with clay glaze.
- Add the jewelry supplies. First, add a jump ring, then a piece of chain. Finally, add the clip and another jump ring. Voila! Your emoji backpack charms are done!
Notes
For more fun back to school crafts, visit Ruffles and Rain Boots.com
Over to You
Which is your favorite emoji to use? I love the heart-eyed smiley but find myself using the poop much too often. ;)
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