The Artistic Stamper Creative Team Blog: Katy Sue moulds

Thursday, 26 June 2014

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!!!

Monday, 24 March 2014

You don't bring me flowers...

Hello all, Alison (butterfly) here again, with a musically-inspired hanging for you today. (Click on the photos for close-ups if you'd like to see more.)

This happens to me a lot... a phrase or song lyric will go round and round in my head until I'm pretty much forced to allow it to play along. If you want to listen while you look, You Don't Bring Me Flowers is the song that invaded this creation!

I know this song was triggered by the new toy I was playing with to create the stone urn on this piece... there's something very melancholy about old stone planters in my head, and that dictated how this piece took shape.

Jennie has just added these fabulous Katy Sue Designs silicone moulds to The Artistic Stamper shelves. There are some really lovely and intricate moulds - and I thought this little trio might have dollshouse potential as well as crafty applications.

I had meant to use some air-drying clay, but when push came to shove I wasn't patient enough to wait for it to dry, so instead I melted some beeswax in a tart tin, using my heat tool, and poured that into the moulds.

I sealed it with multi-medium, and then painted it with various colours, including the marvellous Stone Fresco. The little mulberry paper flowers are from my stash.

Regulars will know that when I need melancholy, I usually reach for the Gibson Girls, and this woman was perfect for my purposes.

I stamped her in Potting Soil Archival onto some Distress Watercolour Cardstock, and then used a mask to allow me to ink and stamp around her.

I stencilled around her using the new Tim Holtz Doily mask, and stamped with my favourite Calligraphy Mat, but lots of the layers have almost disappeared under the final spritzing of Perfect Pearls Mist in Pearl.

Worth it for the shimmer - though it's hard to capture in a photo.

The book page ivy strands had been sitting around on my desk for ages (created for this art journal page at the beginning of February, but then that needed something darker).