Imagine yourself in the middle of springtime in a grassy spot in the middle of a field of wildflowers. Sound good? Okay then, make sure you have a basket for bringing a little picnic and for carrying back some flowers as a remembrance of the day...
Stamp set
Little Posy Basket stamp set
"let's do lunch!" mini sentiment peg stamp
Papers
Lavender card stock half-sheet, folded
Brown card stock
Pale Yellow card stock
Purple card stock scrap
White card stock scrap
Inks
Versacolor Pinecone, Hyacinth, Grape, Umber, Evergreen, and Sage;
Encore Metallic Gold
Other Tools and Embellishments for Card
Embossing folders of your choice
Mini Scor-it Board (optional)
RST positioning templates - Arches and Small Shapes (Small Shapes optional)
Gold Paint Pen
Ribbon
Materials for Clay Pendant
You will need the Little Posy Basket peg stamp set (set used in these images is Nature's Path)
Square Pendant (LPS-SP)
Clay and accessories
X-acto knife
water and a fine mist sprayer is helpful
acrylic paint
foam or small artist brush
plastic clay-making tools are helpful
fine sand paper
a toaster oven
and some heavy-duty glue (I like to use E6000 or a similar glue)
Instructions
Take the Lavender card base and run it through the die cut machine using the embossing folder of your choice. Then edge the card base with Bark ink. Set aside for now.
Locate the Brown paper and use the Scor-It Board to emboss a rectangular pattern on the paper, using four strokes of the stylus.
Then stamp the following, around the border of the Brown paper:
Stamp the Basket in Pinecone ink.
Stamp the Flowers in Hyacinth ink.
Stamp the Flowers again, this time in Grape ink.
Stamp the Sprig in Gold ink.
Then cut out the frame, around the outer border where you just stamped... and inside the embossed square you made with the Scor-it board. Edge the inside and outside edges of the frame with Pinecone ink. Edge the outer edges with the Gold Paint Pen. Set aside for now.
Locate the Pale Yellow card stock and run it through an embossing folder. Lay the Brown frame on top of this piece and trim the Pale Yellow piece so that it is only slightly larger than the Brown frame. Edge the Yellow piece with the Gold Paint Pen and then mount the Brown frame to the Yellow paper with double-sided foam tape. Glue the resulting ensemble to the card base.
Make the Pendant Centerpiece
This set of instructions uses images from a different stamp set; simply follow the instructions using the Square Pendant and Little Posy Basket stamp set instead.
Because we want the images to be raised instead of concave, we will first make a mold out of the polymer clay. I love molds because they allow you to re-create the same design over and over with a single mold. Just think of the jewelry you can make to sell or give away. By the way, Rubber Stamp Tapestry is an angel company which means that you can use our images to make products to sell. Not all rubber stamp manufacturers are angel companies so it is a good idea to ask before using rubber stamps to make items that you intend to sell.
Although this photo shows a completed pendant, use the ribbon
in this way to remove uncured polymer clay from the pendant.
Take the metal pendant and place a ribbon inside, which will serve as a method for removing the polymer clay once it is baked. Now fill the space with clay. Make sure the clay is not above the rim of the metal. (I like it only slightly recessed) Spray the clay with water, which will serve as a release agent so the rubber will not stick to the clay. Then use the stamps in the set to create your own little garden!
Bake the mold. Leave the clay inside the pendant to bake it, making sure not to heat the polymer clay over 275 degrees (for 25 minutes) to avoid the release of fumes. Bake it on a piece of card stock or cardboard.
After completely cool, remove the baked clay from the metal heart with the ribbon you placed inside the metal pendant. Note: the clay will bend and it has a lot of flexibility.
Next, place the ribbon back in the metal pendant and fill the pendant with polymer clay. Spray lightly with water, then place the baked mold over the clay-filled pendant and press until the excess clay squishes out of the sides.
This images shows a different pendant for the purposes of illustration.
I used a clay tool to remove the excess clay as shown in the photo above.
Gently remove the top piece of clay and bake the soft polymer clay, inside the pendant, for 25 minutes at 275 degrees. If you are unsure about the temperature, use an oven thermometer. Do not over bake or heat over 275 degrees. Cool completely and remove from pendant. Lightly sand edges with fine grade sand paper. At this point, before putting the clay back inside the pendant, is the best time to add color to the clay.
It it better to first remove the fired clay from the pendant before working with color, to avoid painting the metal. If you forget (like I did in the above photo), no big deal, just scrub the paint off of the pendant with a plastic dish scrubber.
Next, take a piece of foam and some thinned acrylic paint and colorize the clay, working the color into the recessed areas of the clay. Do this quickly because acrylic dries pretty fast. You can use either a brush or a sponge. Spray lightly with water to disperse the color before the acrylic starts to dry. For quick drying, you can put it back in the oven for 4-5 minutes. Cool completely.
Lightly sand the outside rough edges and surface with a fine grade sandpaper and then glue the heart into the pendant. Mount the pendant on a chain and you are ready for the party!
Make the Sentiment Medallion
Stamp the "let's do lunch!" sentiment in Evergreen ink on a piece of White paper.
Then stamp the Basket in Grape ink under the sentiment, at an angle.
Stamp some Flowers in Hyacinth ink.
Stamp the Flowers again, this time in Grape ink.
Stamp the Sprig in Umber ink.
Then line up the smallest arch from the RST Arches positioning template
and, using Sage ink, make a silhouette around the sentiment.
Then finish up by cutting out the medallion and attaching it to the frame on the card.
So, that's it!
... Well, almost. In case you want to make the card without the pendant, here's how it would look:
Here I used the "thinking of YOU" sentiment peg stamp, with White card stock, Brown card stock,
Grape and Umber inks, along with our "Small Shapes" positioning template and a Gold Paint Pen.
And here is the pendant by itself!
I sure hope you enjoyed today's blog. Until next time...
Happy Stamping from Susan and rest of the gang at Rubber Stamp Tapestry!
