…… but after four years I finally say that I have to used the Martha Stewart Crafters Clay I bought in Michael’s in Las Vegas!
I was crafting with Iris, and we went halves on the clay, she wanted to make gingerbread men and when I had a mooch through her cutters I decided that I would make some mice, thinking I could make a card along the lines of Twas the Night Before Christmas ……..
The clay was very, very light and I think is made from some sort of paper product(?). I started with the mouse, adding a nose, and eye, whiskers and ribbon. I had a card blank ready, but then I found some craft stick frames I had made a while ago and got to thinking ……..
I roughly fitted things together and worked out the area where I needed to hand write the first line of the poem so that the mouse fitted neatly over it.
Once happy, I glued the paper behind the frame.
I edged the frame with faux stitching using a black fine liner pen. Deciding that the mouse didn’t look right left white, he took on a completely different character when I coloured him using a brown Promarker pen. I then glued him onto the frame, holding him in place with a few small pegs while the glue dried.
I used red bakers twine to hang the decoration by, covering the ends over with a scrap of white card and edging again with a black fine liner pen.
The finishing touches, to add a little more colour and extra Christmassy flavour, were made by adding holly leaf confetti and red flat back pearls in three corners of the plaque. I am so thrilled with how it turned out, considering it was meant to be a card ……… 
