Hearts, Flowers and Lace

The other day, while cleaning out some storage areas, I came upon a stash of old lace left over from my sewing days. There were several pieces with a nice heavy weave so I decided to try and see what kind of impression they would make on Polymer Clay. Much to my surprise and delight, one of the crocheted pieces made a texture that looks very much like French Damask, and that is the texture I used to create this "French Flourish and Rose Box"

Supplies used in this project

4 oz Premo Accents Gold Clay

Small bits of colored clay for Flowers
Premo Accents Opal (for Heart)

Heart & Scroll molds 

Assorted Lace & Trim

Sculpty Bake & Bond

Pasta Machine

Super Glue 

craft knife
Gold acrylic paint
gold mica powder

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The project began with this pretty little porcelain box I found at the thrift store. If you have read any of my other posts, you know I like to rescue items and “redo” them. :)

These are some of the laces I found in my stash. There were only a few that were “heavy” enough to make an impression in clay, they are usually the hand crocheted pieces. Now that I know what great texture patterns you can get from crocheted items, I will be searching for damaged doilies at yard sales this Spring.

I used a roller to firmly embed the crochet into the clay.

Look at the beautiful texture the lace made! This is the kind of thing that inspires me to create with Polymer clay, this pattern is just gorgeous!! 

And here is a piece of trim I found, it makes a deep impression and a lovely border.

Ready to go in the oven for a first bake.  I bake my clay for 1 hour at 275 degrees.

I found this mold on Amazon, it came from China and took forever to arrive (over a month), but it was well worth the wait and it was under $2. The scrolls are beautiful and can be arranged in many different patterns. They remind me of French Ormolu. The only drawback is the difficulty in putting the clay into the mold, it has to be done in many stages to get all the detail. I included a photo to show the mold loaded, hope you can see how many "joins" I had to make to get the clay in correctly. After the pieces are cured, I use a cuticle clipper to cut away the excess.

 I add very shiny acrylic paint to the pieces. I discovered something that works well for me. Just plain Metallic Gold paint doesn't give me the effect I want, so I mix gold mica power into the gold acrylic.

These pieces are very shiny and ready for my next project. Ever since I learned that I could bake components more than one time, it improved my work. Now I can have things ready in advance to decorating my creations.

 

These roses I made a while back, they will be ready to go when I am.  I find it very relaxing to make roses, so I do that when I can't think of anything else to make. :)

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Finished Heart & Flowers box, hope you enjoyed seeing my Valentines project

 as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you.