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!!!

Shrink to fit....

Hello everyone, Astrid here with my latest project. Quite a simple one but fun to do, and I quite like the result even if I say so myself.....

Apart from the stamps I have used several Distress products, as this month's challenge theme is "Use Distress".
Here is the list of what I used:
Stamps:
Leaves by Katie Fox
Leaves Background

Other products
Shrink Plastic
Distress Stain Gathered Twigs
Distress Inks: Bundled Sage, Pine Needles, Aged Mahogany, Rusty Hinge, Walnut Stain, Seedless Preserves
Archival Ink: Potting Soil
Seambinding
Heat tool

From my stash:
Treasure Gold, small piece of Hessian, embossing folder, Kraft card, home made mica spray, eyelet and setting tool small leaf charm

I started by stamping one of the leaves with Potting Soil archival onto some shrink plastic three times, I then cut them out and  shrunk the leaves with my heat tool. I love the detail you get. Here you can see it (after I had mounted them and rubbed some treasure gold around the edges).

I created a little panel to be the vocal point of my bookmark, it measure about 1 1/4 by 3 3/4". I coloured with Aged Mahogany, Rusty Hinge and Seedless Preserves Distress Inks and gave it a few spritzes of a home made gold mica spray.

Next I created the background panel, it measures exactly 2 by 6". I coloured it with some Bundled Sage Distress Ink and a tiny bit of Walnut Stain around the edges. Then I stamped the Leaves background in Pine Needles Distress Ink.. I ran the bottom part through an embossing folder and then highlighted the raised bits with the Treasure Gold and Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

 I then mounted the central panel on a piece of hessian and adhered that to the background panel. This was then adhered to a piece of Kraft card.

I died some seam binding to tone in with my central panel. I used a mix of Gathered Twigs Distress Stain and Seedless Preserves Distress Ink, rubbed straight onto the seem binding and then sprayed with lots of water.

I punched a whole and set an eyelet at the top of the bookmark and added a little charm.

And that was it, - project complete.

Hope you like my bookmark, they are quick and easy to do and make great little gifts. Perhaps I have even inspired you to use some stamps on shrink plastic. It is a great way to use large stamps on small projects!

And don't forget, there are just a few days left to join in our challenge, all the detail can be found HERE

Have a creative week and thank you so much for visiting!!