more mould making

Good morning!  I had intended to get a post up yesterday, but I didn't get home in time on Sunday night to write one.  We went down South for my nephew's first birthday party.  He's full of cold so it was a snotty one, but wonderful to see him.

I wrote about a mould making class I did a few weeks ago, and promised a follow up post to show you the items I'd made in the class and the moulding compound itself.  I can't seem to get this photo to load, but maybe you can see it?

If you can, that's moulding compound.  If you can't, it's a pot of blue and a pot of white putty like substance.  You take equal measures of each (by eye, scales not necessary) and mix them together.  You then have about 5 minutes to cast something before it sets.  When it's set it's still flexible, making it easy to pop the item out.

These are the two moulds I made in the class.  Below each mould (the blue thing) is the polymer clay version and below that is the resin version.  Clearly the blue button on the left looks like a blob, but it does have the pattern in it.  I much prefer the effect of the polymer clay though.

I had a good old dig in my button jar and made some more moulds, it's a bit addictive looking to see what you can cast!  Here is each mould next to it's buttony friend.  I haven't got round to moulding anything using these ones yet, for some reason I got sidetracked trying to make a skinner blend (unsuccessfully...)

I discovered that the wooden shapes I have cast very well and was able to make these two clay bunnies.  You can see on the mould where I pushed it in too far and didn't shape the sides, that involved a bit of trimming when I got the clay out of the mould.  I need to finish these bunnies off!


Related posts

mould making class

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!