It all started when I was working in my yard and I noticed all of the new flower growth that started with the new season. I knew that Mother's Day was just around the corner so I figured I'd make a gift for my mom. Knowing that she really loves candles made it an easy decision to create this brilliant floral tea light candle holder using Amazing Crafting Products.
I remembered that I stashed away a pewter floral piece that used to decorate a glass perfume bottle. Of course I had stowed away it with the hope that some day I would have a reason to mold it. I thought this slice of tree branch would make a nice base for for the candle holder. I really wanted to capture the textures of the flowers and the tree bark so I knew I'd need to make a mold with Amazing Mold Rubber in order to get the rich detailing in the finished piece.
Amazing Mold Rubber is a silicone product and it's used in a 1:10 ratio, but I usually just mix the entire container since I always have tons of stuff waiting to be molded. It has to be poured into a container so I used the box from the Mold Rubber packaging for the tree slice. I cut down the box and lined it with packing tape to make sure the silicone didn't stick to the paper. For the pewter piece I used the lid from the container as a base and added height by taping a paper strip to the lid and taping it in place. Hot glue was used to hold the wood and pewter pieces in place and I poured enough silicone to completely cover each piece.
And the waiting is over! The silicone was completely set within about 2 hours. Setting time varies depending on temperature and humidity {it's pretty humid here in South Florida}. The wood slice and floral pewter base were removed from the mold and I cleaned the molds with alcohol and Q-tips to make sure I got any loose fragments out of the molds before using them.
The silcone molds were ready to use, so I grabbed some Alumidust powders in Bronze, Gold, Copper, Bright Blue and Lt. Green and, using a small brush, I painted alternating sections of color along the walls of the woodslice mold. I also used the same colors to paint the inside my floral mold. Now time to pour some resin! I mixed up some Amazing Clear Cast Resin using a 1:1 ratio of parts "A" & "B" and stirred until it was clear. Once it was ready I added a dash of Blue & Green Alumidust and poured a thin layer into the wood slice mold.
I had some clear resin left over so I pulled out a butterfly mold I made for a previous project and painted the mold with Alumilite Metallic Powder in Copper, Gold, and Pearlescent then poured the extra Amazing Clear Cast Resin into the mold.
Since my layer of Amazing Clear Cast Resin was thin, it dried to the touch in about an hour. I will be filling the rest of the mold with Amazing Casting Resin. Casting resin sets in about 10 minutes and is a solid white color when it dries. I didn't want the candle base to be solid white so out came the Alumidust once again and using a scrap of fabric, I rubbed the color onto the surface an added a few drops of Izink Gold Pigment ink, also rubbing that onto the surface with a fabric scrap. I re-coated the side wall of the piece with Alumilite Metallic Gold and then filled the mold to the top with Amazing Casting Resin. You can see that some of the gold powder came loose and settled on random spots at the top.
VOILA!! My three cast pieces were now finished and ready to be put together.
Using an epoxy adhesive, I attached the floral holder to the base. The final touch was to attach the resin butterfly to a piece of smooth glass and glue it onto the base. I dropped a tea light candle into the holder and it's ready to wrap up and be gifted.'
What project will you make
with Amazing Mold Rubber?
I'd love to see what you create! Please upload and share your creations to the
User GALLERY on the Amazing Mold Putty Website for all the world to see.
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This is beautiful!
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