Sunday 17 February 2013

craft class - mould making

Well hello and happy Sunday!  I quite like Sundays, until it gets to about 4pm, then I start feeling like my weekend is running out...  How much I wish we were rich and I could just sit about making stuff all day long.  I really should have married a millionaire like my mum advised, I just couldn't find one!

Last weekend me and my wonderful mum went to another craft class at The Bead Shop Nottingham.  They've just released the workshop schedule for the next few months and we've been happily plotting what we're going to learn next!  This workshop was on mould making.  No, we had no idea what that was either, seemed like a good enough reason to go along!


This is one of my finished moulds.  It's actually a faulty one, if you look closely you can see the impression isn't that great.  The thing is that we made moulds, played with polymer clay, then filled them with resin so they had to stay at the shop whilst the resin set.  Mum went to fetch them on Friday (along with the actual mould making supplies) so I'll show you next week.


I'm not explaining very well, am I!  Basically, you use a two part compound.  It's a bit like blutack, but not as dense or as sticky.  You take a blue blob and a white blob and mix them together.  You then have roughly 5 minutes before it sets hard and can't be altered.  We used a selection of buttons and bits and bobs the tutor had bought in.

Above are the polymer clay things I made from the decent fleur-de-lis mould.  I pressed silver clay into the mould, then I tried lilac, then I did another lilac one and very carefully cut around it so it leaves a free standing shape.  The other one is a flower button from one of the moulds my mum made.  I pressed the silver clay in first to form the centre.


I love this mould.  It was cast from a rather horrific looking gold-coloured plastic button, but wow, what a difference a bit of clay makes!  As you can see, I made one in silver, then experimented to make a two tone button. I'm looking forward to getting hold of this mould to play with it some more.

You can also use the moulds with resin, and I'm going to give them a go with UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel).  I'll be sure to show you the results!

Oh, if you're wondering what all this is for, well I can use the moulds to make custom buttons or bits and bobs for jewellery making.  You can cast pretty much anything and coming up with a use for them will be half the fun.  I'll be back before long to show you the actual compound, the successful moulds and the resin experiments!

10 comments:

Anna said...

Love it !
Have a nice week !
Anna

Kerryp77 said...

wow that's so clever, The times I've seen a very pretty button and thought if only that wasn't such a vile gold! Looking forward to seeing what become of the little pieces you've cast

Chrissie said...

Very creative, you could even use the fleur de lis ones in home decor, like the pretty button ones, have fun, also great that you and your Mum can spend crafty time together

cauchy09 said...

wow, you try everything! that two-tone one is super lovely.

Anita said...

Hi Wendy,
I feel the same way about Sundays but my twitchy time is 8.30pm and I don't want to think about my bedtime!!! lol. That's when I start wishing I could stay home all the time too and make stuff.
Anyone got the winning lotto numbers out there? lol
Cheers, Anita.

Samantha said...

Fabulous mould! (First time I've ever said that lol!) The round button one looks gorgeous without gaudy gold to distract you :)

JoJo said...

Those are fabulous!!!!!!! The bottom pic looks like a yin yang!!

Chrissy said...

I can see tonnes of potential for this craft. It looks great fun. I love the idea of being able to make your own buttons too!

Sandra :) said...

I was just reading a blog post on how to make buttons - they had a link to an Etsy store that sells the molds, so I've been having a great old time looking around for molds and ideas :) It hadn't occurred to me to actually MAKE the molds instead of buying them - this looks like a lot of fun!

Jane said...

That looks like fun