New Pink Petticoat Papers

Just treated myself to these little beauties from the lovely Liz at Pink Petticoat.

At the moment she has them on offer, both sets for £2.00!  I cannot wait to start using them.  Oh and you get these free, what's not to love!

Lolo xx

Polymer Clay and Stamps

It's only taken a year but I have finally gotten around to trying out what Kirstie Allsopp showed us all in her handmade christmas programme last year!  Better late than never.  I purchased some packs of Fimo White Polymer Oven Bake Clay from eBay a while back, think it only cost £1.50 a block so not expensive.  Here is what my first batch came out like.

They clay is quite 'stiff' but you just knead it for a few minutes in your hands and it soon softens up.  I rolled out small quantities to about 3mm thick, I did this using just a pen as I don't have a roller small enough but it worked fine.  Next I took some of my rubber stamps, you can use clear stamps as well just make sure they are good quality as some are too soft to make an impression, and pressed quite firmly into the clay.  I also tried using some buttons, you need to experiment with different types as some buttons don't work so well and just look weird.  

Next it was into a low oven, 120C, for 30 mins on a baking sheet or you could use a ceramic tile like Kirstie did.  Let them cool down for a while and then either leave plain, or decorate them with paints.  You can also trim away any unsightly edges at this point and sand them back if they are a little rough.  They clay is set when it comes out but is not like pottery, it still has some flexibility to it, almost rubber like if that makes sense.

Some close up shots. The images really do stamp rather well, better than I thought.

 I love this script stamp and as you can see I didn't clean it properly before using so am left with some ink residue.  Rethinking this I would now probably ink the stamps before using them and see what that looks like.  I freehand cut round mine but using cookie cutter shapes would be much better and cleaner looking, I was just too lazy to get mine out of the box!

Wouldn't this cute little snowflake make lovely tags on pressies or cards.  You would need a hole to put thread through which should normally be done before you bake them but if you have one of the Cropadiles this will punch through the clay real easy.

Since using this I've heard about another type of clay which is paper clay and cures by air drying, Martha Stewart makes some but is a bit pricey.  Have now found some on Panduro Hobby which is much better value, you can view what they have for sale here.

If you've been playing around with clay and have any useful tips I 'd love to hear from you.  For instance I did hear that using the Fimo Clay in your oven isn't particularly good for your food!  Is this true?

Thanks for popping by.

Lolo 

xx

Doillies, Butterflies and Bunting

Today I made a card for a colleague at work.  She is 22 at the weekend, so young, sigh.  Never seen her wear pink at the office so avoided the sugary girlie look and chose a subtle polka dot print in putty from my Pink Petticoat digital papers, which are lush I might add!

 Sentiment was added to the background paper before printing using Photoshop.  I love how you can really personalise stuff this way and be able to mix up the fonts.

 Bunting stamped using a set by Anna Griffin recently purchased from QVC and have to say it stamps like a dream using archival ink.  Triple bow made with seam binding and good old garden twine .

Paper doillies were stamped using a set from My Minds Eye purchased from Create and Craft, I am really loving their style of stamps and have made some more purchases since then. 

These butterfly stamps by My Minds Eye are so cute, just stamped onto some white cardstock and cut, attached with 3d glue dots and drew their bodies with a sekura glitter pen in soft gold.

Hope you like the card.

Lolo

xx