Amazing Casting Products: Take a #Cr8time Road Trip on Mold Rubber Monday with Aimée Wheaton

Road trips, you either love them or hate them. I used to love them as a kid because as the oldest I always had my trusty yellow walkman (yes I'm dating myself now) and I could tune out my brothers and just look out the windows waiting to get to our destination. I have so many fond memories of piling in the car and seeing new places. To this day I LOVE road trips (for the most part). I am hoping to do a few this year as a family and being able to make new memories in 2015. This takes me to my latest project - My Road Trippin bird family!

I love going out and hunting for treasures, I usually have to pay for them which is OK but sometimes I get super lucky and find things I can use in my art, this happened with this project. We went on a play date to a park one day and I found this amazing wooden decorative piece that someone used as a toy and it broke. It was a primitive sheep standing on a checkerboard base with wheels and a pull string. The sheep was broken off the top, I promptly scooped it up and took it home as a treasure, I wasn't sure what I as going to do with it but knew I could make something fun!

I purchased two ceramic birds at a local flea market just for fun and then the wheels started turning, somehow these birds were going to go on a road trip ..... I didn't want to use the original birds in the piece so I decided to mold the one that wasn't cracked in Amazing Mold Rubber - I am hooked on this product, it's super easy to use and it it turned out amazing!! OK enough reading let's get to some photos!

Here's the cute little guy in a mold box that was originally a paper punch package. I hot glued him down so he wouldn't move and also sealed the hole on the bottom of the bird with packing tape.

Next I prepared the entire container of Amazing Mold Rubber

{CLICK HERE to view mixing/preparation}.

Thankfully it's humid where I live, the Amazing Mold Rubber cured very quickly and I was able to demold in a few hours after I poured it. You can see the shape of the paper punch now! LOL

OK now that the bird was demolded, I can now prepare my resin and pour it in. I decided to use Amazing Casting Resin because of how quick it sets and I knew I would be collaging the birds.

The resin setting, this mold got super hot! For larger volumes of resin mixed, more is heat generated in curing process.

Look at this amazing casting!!!! Which is the original? ;) I'm envisioning making a mixed media series of birds, it has nice weight to it too. I was thrilled with how it turned out! You guys the opportunities are endless with this product!

Next I decided to collage using mod podge and vintage paper and tissue paper.

Decided to do 2 birds! The butterfly was an embellishment I made awhile back and had been holding onto it to use somewhere.

Next gesso the crap out of all of the items making sure you can still see some of the stuff underneath it. I wanted to tone it down a bit.

Here is the cool base I found! :) I painted the entire thing.

Next I added back in some color using some chalk stamps in various colors.

While the birds were drying I found some vintage watch parts and used them to cover the screws on the wheels using some E6000 adhesive.

Adds a bit more dimension and interest.

I wanted to add some height to the base and remembered I had a large piece of cork in my mixed media junk box, painted it with gesso.

One cool thing about working with resin is the overflow that you have. Apparently I've reached for the same mold I made from Amazing Mold Putty when I have mixed too much resin, these 3 flower pieces I had in a box waiting to be used and they were molded from the bottom of a depression green glass plate, it's a sunflower motif.

I glued all of it down to the base.

Next I went out to my garage for the messy process of spraying the base. I used some metallic sprays that I had in green's and blues. I also used some white spray paint for extra contrast.

I sprayed and wiped too to get variation.

While out there I found a nest I had glued some lapis beads into last year. OMG it was perfect for the theme! This thing just kind of built itself once the nest was found. I spray painted the nest part while I was out there with the white paint.