Playing with Paperclay

Hello everyone, this is Astrid with my second June project.
It's the wedding season and I decided to make a romantic vintage piece that could work as a wedding gift, or indeed any occasion gift.

Did you know that the shop sells a fantastic collection of moulds? These seem to be ever more popular, and for my project I decided to have play with them.

Moulds can be used with all sorts of products, embossing powder, Utee, - there is even a special product made by Modge Podge, called Modge Melts.
For this project I chose to play with paper clay, as it is light, can easily be painted and works beautifully with the more delicate moulds.
These are the products I used:
Stamps:
Botanical 2 by Katie Fox (now Leitch)
Leaves Background
Regency Background
Botanical 3
Moulds:
Floral Circle
Silicone Butterfly Trio
I also used Distress Paint in Antique Linen and Pumice Stone and Black Stazon and Coffee Archival Ink and Antique Linen, Gathered Twigs and Walnut Stain Distress Inks, Shrink Plastic, and Distress Markers.

I started by die cutting a fancy frame from Kraft card and stamped the Leaves background in Coffee Archival onto it. This was a second generation stamp impression as I wanted it fairly light and my ink pad was very juicy.

Next I cut another fancy shape out of white card and stamped the Regency Background in Antique Linen Distress Paint.

Then I painted both my frame and butterfly with the same paint

I darkened the edges a bit with Pumice Stone paint and then rubber over it with some Treasure Gold to bring out the detail of the designs.

For my vocal image I chose the largest rose from the Botanical 3 set, stamped it onto Shrink Plastic in Black Stazon and shrunk it with my heat gun and then coloured it with Distress Markers. It was now the perfect size to fit inside the little frame!
Finally I cut a banner with the new Tim Holtz banner dies and stamped the word  Les Fleur from the Katie Fox Botanical set onto it with Coffee Archival.

Then I inked around the edges of my main background pieces in Gathered Twigs and Walnut Stain Distress Inks and layered them all up until I was happy with my composition:

The little embellishment at the bottom was from another mould from my stash and I hung my little hanger from some cord.
Here are some details still:

I love the detail you get when stamping onto shrink plastic, I think it makes the rose look so dimensional.

With really detailed moulds like these, I found it works best to let the paper clay dry in the mould over night. The clay shrinks just a little bit and then easily can be pushed out of the moulds.

I was really happy the Fleur sentiment fitted just perfectly on the banner.

Well, there you have it. Hope you like my banner, thank you so much for visiting today, and don't forget, there are just a few days left to join our challenge!!!