PaperClay Valentine

I played with Creative PaperClay for the first time at our Pandoras meeting on Monday, and followed instructions by Elaine Thomas in the January/February issue of Cloth Paper Scissors magazine to make this cutie. What fun! I started out by molding the clay around a lump of aluminum foil (see photo at right), then let it air dry.

I painted it with liquid acrylic paint in pretty bright colors. The red of the heart, for example, was a cherry red. I needed a teeny-tiny brush to do the features, since the whole thing is only about 3" high, and the face is about 1". After that was dry, I coated the whole thing with brown paint, and wiped most of it off to give it a more mottled, antiqued appearance.

The ruff around her neck is made from a strip from a beat-up old hymnal I found in an antique store (no, I wouldn’t rip up a perfectly good hymnal, Mom!) Last, I added some superfine glitter on her collar, and a little bit overall on the heart. I am still considering giving her a little birthmark mole.

Elaine’s directions were very easy to follow, and I was pleased with the results. Next time, I’ll try to do something in my style, instead of following hers, but this was a great learning experience. I’ve been wanting to do some Halloween pieces, and the PaperClay will be perfect!