Crafting Mexican cacti with iron beads and clay
You must have done it once, made something nice out of iron beads. You put the beads in a pattern (on a bottom plate), and when you're done, you go over them with the iron. The beads melt together, now you can remove the pattern from the bottom plate. Usually you have a flat figure.

Together with my creative neighbor children and favorite buuf we made small flat cacti out of ironing beads. With Creall self-hardening clay (Do&Dry) we made flower pots, and just put the cacti in there. Convenient, huh? The clay does not need to be baked and can be painted directly!
The cactus has now become a bit 3D! Before you insert the cactus into the clay, first glue the flowers on it with ordinary transparent glue (e.g. Creall Coll). Paint the clay with Creall Top deco acrylic paint. Use a soft clay brush with a pointed tip to make it easier to paint details.
Use bright, cheerful Mexican summer colors and your cactus almost seem to dance! Nice and decorative for the garden table, veranda or conservatory. And... they don't sting!