Hello! It’s Valerie with my first post for 2015. Thanks to My Mind’s Eye I have this amazing collection of decorative tape! I’ve been doing some thinking—thinking of different things to make using this tape. I’ve seen people use it to decorate their walls and furniture, but what about wearing it…as in using it to make jewelry? And then this little endeavor led to creating some embellishments for scrapbooking too.
I have a box of air dry modeling clay that I purchased from my local craft store a couple years ago. It’s a white clay that feels and looks similar to the stuff we used in high school art class and put in the kiln to dry. I usually get it out around Christmas time to make some handmade ornaments with my son.
Yes, I did say I bought this box a couple years ago, and well, this is probably my last project with it—it’s starting to get a little dry. Amazing that it lasted as long as it did! You could also probably use the modeling clay that comes in lots of colors and a much smaller size than my ten pound box of clay.
So here’s my supplies. I raided my son’s play-doh tools and pulled out a rolling pin and a cutting wheel. I’ve also got a paintbrush, a ruler, a paper piercer, some heart shaped cookie cutters, and a scrap piece of cotton canvas cloth. In high school we always worked with our clay on a canvas cloth. I think it was because it was easier to peel the clay off the cloth than a smooth table.
It’s kind of like your floured work surface I guess, and I do like the texture it leaves on the clay. Later on in the post I added gel medium, embossing ink, embossing powder, and a heat gun to my arsenal of supplies, but they didn’t make the photo.
Supplies: My Mind’s Eye Market Street Ashbury Heights decorative tape (pink floral), Lost & Found Record It Antique decorative tape (silver chevron), and Now & The Milo decorative tape (yellow/turquoise floral).
I used two different very basic techniques to create my pendants. I rolled the dough flat like when making sugar cookies and cut it into strips. Then I connected the ends to create the pendant in the photo on the left above.
For the pendants on the right, I rolled the clay out like a snake/worm and cut it down to size. I used a paper piercer to create the hole. The clay, when it’s this thin and small doesn’t take too long to dry. I may have placed it on the heat vents in our house to speed up the process a little.
It definitely shouldn’t take much longer than overnight to dry. First, I used gel medium on the pendant and then applied the tape while the gel medium was still tacky. I applied another layer of gel medium on top of the tape to make sure it was adhered well. I decided to add a little silver and gold with some embossing powder. I simply rolled the pendant or pressed the pendant onto my embossing ink pad and then dipped it into the embossing powder and heated it up with a heat tool.
While I had the clay out I decided to cut a few cute little hearts to use as embellishments for a layout. I used gel medium again to make sure the tape was adhered well. Then, used them on this easy single-photo layout pictured below (I’m still slightly obsessed with all the pretty Necessities vellum paper).
Supplies: My Mind’s Eye Necessities Black & Gray “Stripe” vellum paper. Jubilee Wild Berry “Hey You” Rub-Ons. Now and Then Dorothy “Celebrate” Alpha/Word Stickers. My Mind’s Eye decorative tape Pink & Charcoal collection and Pink & Yellow collection. Other: Bazzill Basics Kraft paper and black ink.
Anyone else ready to give clay and decorative tape a try? It’s quite the odd couple, but it was fun experimenting and creating with. Thanks for stopping by!
