Given that my living room is getting painted next week...and a host of electrical stuff will be going on as well...I'm not able to decorate the house for Christmas. Which is quite infuriating seeing this is the first year I've had a blog! So a wreath on the door and a garland or two will probably be the extent of yuletide decorating shenanigans at the tranquil townhouse. Never mind...my substitute for Christmas decorating has been to make these...The 'peace' will be part of a garland, but I also thought it would be nice to make my own gift tags for Christmas presents...so I did that too. Here they are waiting to dry...takes 24 hours or so according to the packet :)Inspired by this magazine article (in December Home Beautiful)......Nellie's clay tag tutorial... and Ness's examples...I thought, why not give it a go! So I did. Here's the bits and pieces...sorry, not a very glamorous shot of all the makings...but I was well and truly over it by the time I took that pic :)The neutral colour DAS clay was much easier to use than the red...and I also used this Fimo light...which is certainly much lighter (but I forgot to take a photo)...it was pretty good to use as well. I just rolled the clay out with a rolling pin, cut out shapes with cookie cutters or in the case of the rectangular ones, a pizza cutter to cut the shape, and then used a variety of stamps and inks to press on to the shape. Make a hole with a bamboo skewer and it's done. Easy! I bought the clay from Eckersley's Art and Craft, some of the stamps from there as well, or from Lincraft...and the pen (see below) from Riot Art. I'm sure Spotlight would have all or most of this as well but I couldn't be bothered schlepping over to Queanbeyan! Apparently once they're dry you can smooth the rough edges with some steel wool, but an emery board would probably be good...and easier. I'll have to do that tonight once the tags are dry.
The lovely girl at Riot Art assured me that this pen will write on the clay once it's dry. My intention is to do the whole to/from/with love etc thing on the back of each tag. Because you never know...some of my family and friends might get a whole lot of presents from other clay tag making people, not just from me! Hard to believe I know :)
p.s. I'll be having a Christmas giveaway on Monday...might fling a few of these in :)
