A Box of Roses

I like to work alot of clay and shadow boxes or frames so alot of my work tends to be stuff revolving around these things.

This instructable is a cool way to fill in a shadow box without using BORING PHOTOS! :D, it gives your wall a cool vintage feel and allows you to explore the art of filling shadow boxes with clay made items.

- A shadow box ( Here i used a large 12x12 white box )
- Scrapping booking / cardstock paper ( choose anything that you think would compliment what you put int for my box i used a linen cardstock 12x12 sheet that has cursive notation on it)
-Glue (Super glue or glue gun is more ideal and faster)
-Air Dry Clay (Polymer Clay is also optional)
-Air Dry Permanent Enamel Paint (Use a shimmer, and a base coat)
-Crackle Paint (Gives the vintage rustic look)
- Beige Ivory Acrylic Paint (or any paint you want to paint the frame with)

Depending on the size of the rose you want to make, in this case starting off with a small amount of clay to make small roses and move on to larger amounts to make large rose heads. For this its best to have various sizes for a more appealing look.

-Roll clay out into a a long medium thickness rope (too thin of a rope the clay will be to warm to roll into rosettes) 

-Segment the rope into small pieces as shown below, these segments will make up each petal of the rosettes

To form each petal

take individual segmented clay pieces and press using your fingers into a flat oval segment, Try not to flatten the piece of clay too thin as it will be harder to roll and will tend to chip or crack when handling.

Using your thumb and index finger roll the petals into a loose roll.

The trick is try to roll the piece of clay on an angle and press the petal out so it won't be bounded tightly. You want to have the first roll to be small as the other petals will be larger.

To add more petals will also determine the size of the rosette. To make rosette larger, repeat the process of pressing segmented clay flat and roll the piece around the 1st rolled petal and press it out to form a rose like appearance.

As you repeat this process as time consuming as it is... Your rosette will start to take shape!!! 

Repeat this whole process of forming them in various sizes, try to be creative and play around with shaping the petals more by bending them backwards away from the centre roll.

Once you form the rosette you end up with a tail of somewhat.

Using a pair of scissors cut the tail off to create a flat end so the rosette can lay flat, this allows it to be painted and glued easier.

Once laid out flat use your fingers again to push back the petals so the rosette petals will appear more spaced out 

It is essential to let the rosettes you made dry!! 

if you use polymer clay place rosettes in the oven and bake as to the temperature and suggested timing on packaging. For this intructable i used air dry clay, but i was able to speed up the process of letting them dry but placing them in a oven for 200 degrees Celsius for 20 mins OR Until the clay appears very very white.

I decided to use air dry enamel to colour the rosettes. This gives them a very nice sheen and matt colour i find.

I used 3 enamels.  I suggest using a shimmer and a base enamel to give the roses different soft tones

-1 a white air dry enamel shimmer
-1 cotton candy (or pink) air dry enamel (base)
-1 ivory air dry enamel (base)

Try to be creative and mix the enamel base with the shimmer. You can also add a little bit of acrylic paint to change the colour of the shimmer if you don't have an enamel base colour (the yellow rosette is an example of a white shimmer with yellow acrylics added to it). ;)

Once you decided on a colour simply brush the enamel on the rosettes, The more layers of enamel you add to the rosettes increases the colour and shine to them. Allow to dry for at least 4 hours to fully settle the enamel

OR if you have no patience like me...use a hair dryer!! 

Using a 12x12 shadow box its pretty convenient that cardstock / scrap booking paper is the same size!! 

So depending on the size of your shadow box, pic out a cardstock / scrap booking paper that you think will compliment your roses. For my shadow box i was lucky to find a linen cardstock scrap booking paper with some pretty neat cursive writing on it.

Using glue or a glue gun, glue the cardstock paper / scrap booking paper to the backing of the shadow box.

So now you have 

1) Your painted clay roses
2) Your shadow box all ready

All your hard work has paid off because now all you have to do is GLUE THAT STUFF ON!!! 

i mean the clay roses to the cardstock / scrapbooking paper. Try to arrange the rosettes so they take up space on the background. 

I suggest using a glue gun or superglue as it holds and dries faster. I used regular elmers glue it does the job you just hae to be QUITE GENEROUS with the amount you put on the back of the roses and let it dry for a couple of hours before placing the dried product into the frame.

Once shadow box has fully dried Its capable to be hung or placed around as great accent!!