Play With Clay - Flowering Flourishes Thanks Card

This card came about because of me playing with my new SU! Simply Pressed Clay and moulds.  I wasn't too keen on the idea of clay at first but after seeing a few projects online and watching a few YouTube videos I thought I'd give the clay a try.  I'm so impressed how easy it is to work with, just pop the clay in the moulds, take the shapes out and leave them to air dry - simple!

I first experimented with colouring white clay shapes by using ink from a refill bottle and a waterbrush and I also tried colouring a shape with a marker.  I wasn't too happy about how those turned out so I then tried mixing drops of re-inker with the white clay and kneading before putting it into the moulds.  I like the uniform colouring of this method much better.  I have great success getting the flower shapes out if I place the mould in the freezer for a while (about 15 minutes).  I did the same thing with the buttons but I didn't manage to get them out in 100% perfect condition - more experimenting required there!

 
I think kneading ink into the clay using paler inks works better - I used Pool Party ink for my buttons.  For my flowers I thought I'd go to the other extreme and I opted for a dark ink - Cherry Cobbler.  I kept adding drops of the Cherry Cobbler ink but you can't get a really deep shade this way, the addition of the ink makes the clay very sticky and then it's harder to work with.  For darker inks colouring the clay using a different method would be best.

My flowers came out a shade close to Primrose Petals so I made my card base with that colour CS.  I wanted a shaped card using a Labels Framelit die but I know the largest die shape won't fit inside a C6 envelope.  So I cut two of the largest label shapes and cut the bottom off which ensures the card will stand up and will also fit inside an envelope.  I stamped the French Script background stamp onto the Very Vanilla CS piece with stamped off once Crumb Cake ink, stamped the largest flourish from the Flowering Flourishes set over the top in Old Olive ink and inked the edges with Crumb Cake ink.  I popped the panel up onto the Old Olive panel and glued on the flowers.  I added the stamped and punched sentiment oval and sprinkled on a few rhinestone jewels.

Here's a closer view of the flowers.

Here's the inside and the envelope.  I enjoyed playing even though I looked like I'd committed mass murder with the amount of deep red ink staining I had on my fingers LOL! 

Supplies:
Stamps:  SU! 'Flowering Flourishes' & 'Simply Sketched' sets, 'French Script' background stamp
CS: SU! Primrose Petals, Old Olive & Very Vanilla
Ink: SU! Cherry Cobbler, Crumb Cake, Primrose Petals & Old Olive
Tools: SU! Labels Collection Framelits dies, SU! Buttons & Blossoms Simply Pressed Clay Moulds, SU! circle & oval punches, sponge daubers
Embellishments & accessories: SU! Simply Pressed Clay, Rhinestone Jewels & Dimensionals