Simply Pressed clay fridge magnets

For the past two days I’ve been busy with last-minute Convention preparations and making these… excuse the poor photos. I don’t know if you've noticed but it’s not getting light at the moment!

Every month my Virtual Hostess Club members get a little gift from me. Sometimes it’s a kit to make something, sometimes it’s something I’ve made, and occasionally it’s a little sample of something new.

This time I thought I’d made some little fridge magnets, with some frighteningly powerful magnets I bought online. After several aborted attempts to attach them to clay flowers with glue, I settled on embedding the tiny magnets inside the clay. The trick is to use something I lack: patience. Because if you test these out on your fridge before the clay is fully dry, the magnets will be ripped from the clay as you remove them.

To package them, I’ve used the flowers as an embellishment on a card, cunningly hiding a piece of magnetic photo paper (from the Pound Shop!) between the Whisper White and Smoky Slate layers. The magnets don’t grip to this particularly well so I’ve packaged them in cello bags to prevent them from going astray.

The flowers are coloured with Cherry Cobbler ink, which didn’t go quite as well as I’d hoped. I needed to use LOADS of ink, which made the clay very soft and increased drying time. I recommend sticking to paler shades, as the addition of white clay will inevitably have an effect.

For the rest of the customers at the party, I made thank you cards along the same lines but with a simple glimmer heart in place of the flowers. The silver glimmer paper is sprayed with Coastal Cabana ink mixed with alcohol, to dye it this lovely pale aqua shade. You’ll be seeing lots of this as I somehow ended up with a bit too much!

I die-cut 18 of the “Thankful” words, this time using proper waxed paper. What a difference! It made a tricky job into something simple, so I definitely recommend that. You simply sandwich the waxed paper between the die and the cardstock you wish to cut.

The party/club order is due to arrive today – I am anxiously awaiting the UPS man as I know it’s going to take me quite a while to sort it all out… and it’s always fun having a nosey through everything people have bought!

While I’m waiting, I think I had better go and have another look for my posh shoes for the Awards Night at Convention. They are currently nowhere to be found... 

Stamps: Off the Grid

Cardstock: Smoky Slate, Whisper White, Primrose Petals Core’dinations cardstock

Paper: Quatrefancy

Ink: Smoky Slate ink pad, Cherry Cobbler reinker

Accessories: Epic Day washi tape, Expressions Thinlits, Simply Pressed Clay

Other: Tiny magnets, magnetic photo sheets 

Simply Pressed Clay and Gingham Garden

Talking of clay, which we were, on Wednesday… here’s another project using it, this time with the flower moulds. I coloured the clay using Melon Mambo ink and foolishly didn’t use gloves, resulting in a bit of a “Lady Macbeth” moment. Well, I say “moment” – the staining didn’t go for a couple of days… not quite as long as the Basic Black, but long enough!

The notepad is just something that I’ve been hoarding for years.  I think it came into work as part of a press pack. Bizarrely, it had a couple of pages about the company and the rest was conveniently blank. It was just crying out to be altered, so I covered the front and back with Gingham Garden DSP and then embellished with a bit of washi tape and some clay flowers.

I must put more ribbons down the side – I made this before we could order any of the new ribbons, so it’s a bit sparse!

Stamps: Happy Day

Cardstock: Whisper White, Island Indigo

Paper: Gingham Garden

Ink: Island Indigo

Accessories: Gingham Garden Washi Tape, Simply Pressed Clay, Melon Mambo reinker, Stitched Grosgrain – Whisper White, Daffodil Delight

Tips for using clay and moulds

Have you seen the new clay yet? It’s enormous fun – like playing with Plasticine! Here’s my first clay project – a picture frame decorated with Epic Day washi tape and embellished with buttons.

These are the first buttons I made with the clay and it was a steep learning curve. So I’ll tell you what I did and then you can read the tips below to avoid some of my problems. 

• The large button was coloured with two drops of Crumb Cake reinker.
• The medium button was an attempt to colour with a Calypso Coral marker but it came out more like Crisp Canteloupe… so I coloured directly on to the button with the marker afterwards. This made it a little blotchy.
• The smallest button was coloured with a drop of Basic Black reinker. I foolishly didn’t use gloves – and it took more than a week for my fingers to lose the stains! You can also see some rough edges on this one as I trimmed it after taking it out of the mould. See below for how to avoid this. 

If you haven’t yet seen this clay, I have to tell you that it’s like no clay you’ve ever seen before.

• It’s very white, so you need super-clean hands before you start working.
• It’s very lightweight, too, so excellent for posting, although you’ll still have to watch out for the bulk. 
• When it dries, it doesn’t set hard like plaster, more soft and rubbery like, er, rubber.
• It takes up colour very well and you can colour it various ways. 

Colouring your clay:

1. Only colour small amounts at a time. It’s easier and you won’t be left with a load of one colour that you might not get round to using for a while.
2. The easiest method is to use a couple of drops of reinker. Make a well in the centre and knead it together well.
3. You can also take a piece and swipe it along the inside of an ink pad lid. Don’t put it directly onto the ink pad itself.
4. You can attempt to colour the clay using markers but it’s not ideal, as it takes ages. You can, however, colour the finished shape with markers.
5. You can even mix glitter with your clay for a sparkly effect! 

Making the shapes:

1. Roll a small piece of clay into a small ball and press into the mould. If you have lots of excess around the edge, I find it best to remove this, ball up the clay again and press it in again. You CAN trim off the excess when it’s dried, but it doesn’t look as good. You are aiming for there to be no overlapping clay on top of the mould.
2. To speed up the setting process, put the mould into the freezer for a couple of minutes. This will make it easier to pop the shapes out of the mould.  Don’t worry if you forget – I left one in for over a week once!
3. The flowers are easier than the buttons, because the buttons are such precise shapes. You may wish to leave the buttons in the freezer a little longer.
4. Don’t worry if you don’t have access to a freezer; your shapes will just take a little longer before you can remove them from the moulds.
5. Leave them on a flat surface to air dry.
6. As mentioned above, the finished shapes will not be hard like clay – they will be more like a soft eraser. Once dry, they can be cut with scissors (eg if you want to trim off any excess), sanded down (for the same reason) or coloured with markers. For a shiny surface, you could coat them with Crystal Effects.