Haaste[el]Lista #9: Challenge yourself

There is still time to catch up on the Haaste[el]Lista challenges: closing date for most challenges is August 12. You can read how to participate here!

Anniska and Tutteli asked me to challenge myself… And I didn’t have to think very long about what I was going to do!

I had purchased a packet of clay some time ago that was just sitting on my shelf, staring at me from time to time. I had read about paper clay somewhere and the plan was to try and make embellishments with it. I wasn’t sure if I had bought the right clay though and I hadn’t taken the time to try it out yet. This was my chance!

The clay I used (L’Artista) is air drying. The drying process took a lot longer than I expected, but the result was really nice and light. I found out that it actually isn’t paper clay, but I would say the dry pieces feel like paper.

Then the real experimenting started: I tried Distress Inks on them and they seemed to take those well. I sprayed some with Glimmer Mist too, and they will be OK as long as they don’t get it too moist.

In the end I liked the crisp look of the plain white best and I felt the clay pieces deserved to be the star of the project. So my second goal was to not let myself get carried away with product. I hadn’t created something clean and simple in a while, but my subject (my perfume) actually made it pretty easy.

The name and colour of the bottle forced me to use a colour I don’t usually go for. I didn’t have to bother with going through my stash, because I knew there just wouldn’t be a lot of dark blue/indigo/purple products there. I did have a set of Denim blue Thickers that came with a recent Studio Calico kit and I own a couple of suitable spray inks. I also thought the use of spray ink was particularly clever for a lay-out about perfume :-).

Another thing that I like and I hardly ever use is the Dotted Swiss cardstock. I thought it would be hard to write on it, but it surprised me how smooth it went!

All in all I really liked playing with clay and I made quite a stash of clay embellishments, so who knows how many will pop up on future projects!

Materials: Bazzill Dotted Swiss cardstock, American Crafts – Thickers – Eric – Denim, Hema – Decorative tape, Adirondack Color Wash Denim, Purple Twilight, ColorBox – Pigment stamp pad Frost white, L’Artista original clay, myStampBOX – Cherry Blossoms, Pentel Hybrid Gel Grip DX white, Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist Lavender Fields, Rum Raisin, Delphinium, Wilton Fondant and Gum Paste Mold – Nature Designs, Sewing thread

Haaste[el]Lista

Something new and exciting is taking place in the Finnish blogosphere from August 3rd until August 5th, 2012. It’s an online scrapbooking event called Haaste [el] Lista, which translates as ‘Challenging’, although it looks like ‘Hasta la vista’ to me ;-).

The Haaste [el] Lista-event will be held on two blogs: Anniskan Blogi and Tuttelin Touhout. Both girls will host scrapbooking fun and challenges on their blogs during that first weekend of August. You are more than welcome to participate!

Haaste [el] Lista is sponsored by Scrap365 magazine and a couple of my personal favourite Finnish (online) stores: Amalia Askartelu, Teippitarha (All the washi tape you could wish for!) and Polkkaponi (Remember the cute text buttons Riikka sent me?).

There are 10 sponsors in total and they’ve all provided prizes to be won! In fact: Finnish scrapbookers who advertise the event on their blog already have a chance to win a raffle. I think this raffle is open until July 25th, 2012! (Please note that the raffle is only for people who live in Finland).

I think this weekend will be great fun. Hope to see you there (or there)!