Take a #Cre8time BITE... by Susan M. Brown {sbartist}

"Dip the apple in the brew,

let the Sleeping Death seep through..."

Hello everyone! Susan here to share my latest handmade creations... some very Witch-worthy jewels! This queen of mold putty would normally break out the magic yellow stuff but I wanted to make multiples so I decided on using Amazing Remelt and it certainly did the trick!

Amazing Remelt is a Non Toxic, one-part reusable mold making material for room temperature or low exotherm materials. Amazing Remelt softens at 120˚F and becomes liquid at 135˚-140˚F. It can be remelted and reused to make new molds time and time again. This is ideal for making molds for smaller items such as jewelry, embellishments, and chocolate molds. YES, this stuff is FOOD-SAFE and it works great with chocolate and fondant!!

I have loads of items in a "TO MOLD" box – a collection of found objects, junque and things that I have collected or purchased at thrift stores. One of these items is an old apple pin that is a nice size that would make a nice pendant for a necklace made in resin... and with Halloween just around the corner, how about a POISON apple??! 

I need to do a little prep work to this piece before making a series of molds. The first thing being adding some tape to the backside so the molding material won't flow through the hole where the stem touches the apple. 

I cris-crossed some recycled coffee stir sticks through the pin back so that I can suspend this over a small silicone bowl that I will be using as a mold box.

Now to prepare the Amazing Remelt molding material. This is easy-to-use but you need to be patient and heat to melt in the microwave LOW and SLOW {CLICK HERE to view preparation}. I have melted it in the container it comes in, but for molding small items, I prefer using this cup fashioned with Amazing Mold Putty {molded around the outside of a shot glass}. I like this cup because it can be baked up to 375º F and it helps keep the melted material from cooling too fast.

These photos are showing the mold-making process from the altered "poison" apple. The process is exactly the same for all the molds. I placed the mounted apple over the top of a small silicone bowl then poured the melted Amazing Remelt over the top, completely covering surface of item. I let this set for a minute to cool and begin to harden, then repeated with a second layer. This forms a skin layer and helps prevent air bubbles from getting trapped.

I fill the bowl and flipped the mounted pin over and placed face down into the liquid Amazing Remelt. After leveling it on the bowl, I poured in more remelt to fill up to edge of suspended apple pin. At this point it looks like a mess... but it works! I set this in the refrigerator for about a 1/2 hour to cool and harden.

Now I can pop this AMAZING little apple mold out of the bowl and demold.

Look at the mold... it's fantastic! Amazing Remelt gives you the detail quality of Amazing Mold Rubber – but it's reuseable!! 

I can use these molds, then melt them down to mold something else. I don't have the molds cluttering up my shelves and I saved my Mold Rubber for another day. I am going to have to make a few more molds for FOOD ONLY and make some poison apple Halloween treats with chocolate melts.

With all of my molds made I am ready to fill with Amazing Clear Cast Resin. I am coloring the resin with Alumilite Fluorescent Green Dye and Alumilite Phosphorescent Powder {an additive that glows in the dark}. CLICK HERE to view mixing and preparation.

  

I mix up the resin and set aside to rest so it the resin can cool and the air bubbles can escape. The phosphorescent powder will make magic in the dark.

I spent the most time of making this project on mold preparation. I made 16 molds which took me a a couple hours one morning plus a whole entire day. The time consuming part is melting the Amazing Remelt slowly and then waiting for it to reharden to demold the original. I sort of felt like Willy Wonka with my assembly line of candy apples in progress LOL!

Before I pour resin, I gently cut a slice in each mold where I suspend a headpin with two glass beads which will be embedded in the resin. I will use this to form a loop at the top to affix beads and a jump ring for hanging on a chain. With a tiny brush, I added a bit of color to the leaf and stem using Alumidust.

I gently poured the resin with a stir stick, and filled each mold just so. Then I covered the tray and set aside to cure overnight. **A TIP** get two metal cookie sheets from the dollar store – use one to place the items on, use the other to turn over and place on top upside down to protect resin while curing. I clipped the edges with a few binder clips.

In the morning... my Halloween goodies have hatched and are ready to embellish!

I envisioned having them painted with purple drips to look like the poison apples. My first attempt was painting on my favorite purple nail polish in a real drippy fashion. This looked great while it was wet. I set it aside to dry and when I came back hours later was disappointed at how the nail polish flattened out, even though I had painted on several layers. It looked pretty, but screamed dollar store. 

After much trial and error of a handful of different products, Ranger Perfect Pearls was the one that helped me get in the direction I desired. I painted this dimensional glaze and traced right over my failed nail polish drips. PROGRESS!!! When this completely dried I smoothed and evened out the surface by pressing on a layer polymer clay and baking to cure and harden the clay. I watched this very closely when baking because I was concerned about the dimensional glaze burning.

When cooled completely I prepped this new "poison" apple as I did with the original and made a new mold with Amazing Remelt {see mold-making photo above}.

Voila! My new mold colored with Alumidust and ready with a beaded headpin awaiting resin. I'm so excited to see the end result this time!

After a bit of fussing about with wirewrapping some beaded danglies and forming a hanger from the embedded headpin, I add my gorgeous poison jeweled apple to a ready made chain.

For the good little ghouls... a pretty glowing green goddess apple!

And for those a little bad and BATTY... the glorious poisoned variety!

I love how these turned out and I have made loads for a charm swap! I'm off making more "POISON" apples in different color combinations... and I'm having such evil Cre8time fun!!

What would you mold and transform
into handmade jeweled treasures?

Thanks for visiting! If you would like to see more of my creations,

please visit my blog sbartist : painting in the dark by clicking here. ~ Susan

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AMAZING #Cre8time Spooks and Spells... Frog Eggs by Rachel Whetzel

Hello, AMAZING peeps!! It's Rachel Whetzel... this month, I am preparing for Halloween! It's one of my favorite holidays, and I have a pretty extensive collection of Witch's Apothecary items for my mantel. Every year, I try to add a few new items to my collection, and most of the time, I like to create those pieces myself! This month, I created some Frog's Eggs and created them in a witchy mid-potion display!

Here's what you'll need to make frog's eggs of your own:

• Marbles 
• Amazing Mold Putty
• Amazing Clear Cast Resin
• Amazing Casting Resin
• Alumilite Black Dye
• Alumilite Brown Dye
• Paints 
• Glue (I used E6000) 
• Tea cup and saucer 

Start by mixing your Amazing Mold Putty. (Please CLICK HERE for more detailed instructions on how to mix Amazing Mold Putty.) 

Press Marbles into your mold putty like so:

Next, mix Amazing Clear Cast Resin. I wanted my frog's eggs to have a slightly white look, so I decided to experiment by mixing some Amazing Casting Resin (which dries white) with my Amazing Clear Cast Resin. I mixed them separately, and then combined them into a 4:1 ratio, (4 parts Amazing CLEAR Cast Resin to 1 part Amazing CASTING Resin) combining the Amazing Casting Resin mix with the Amazing Clear Cast Resin once they were each mixed separately. CLICK HERE for directions on mixing Amazing Casting Resin and Amazing Clear Cast Resin. The results were very interesting! If you don't want to try mixing the two, you can use Alumilite WHITE Dye to get a cloudy look in your Amazing Clear Cast.

Once the resin was dry, I popped out the balls, and sanded up the flat side a bit.

Then I pained black ovals onto the round side, and glued them into place in my cup where I wanted them. Gluing before the next step will keep your pieces from floating to the top of your Amazing Clear Cast Resin while the resin cures.

Finally, I mixed a tiny drop of Alumilite BLACK and Alumilite BROWN Dyes into some Amazing Clear Cast Resin, and poured it over my eggs. (When I say tiny, I MEAN tiny!! My "pond sludge" turned out a little darker than I planned. I could have used a tiny bit of each dye color on the tip of a toothpick and gotten a more see-through result.)

Before the Amazing Clear Cast Resin was cured, I tipped my cup over, so that the inside of the finished piece would be easier to see from a front view on my mantle. I love the way the tipped cup gives the illusion that the witch who owns my apothecary has just stepped away to grab a couple more ingredients for her newest spell! 

What kind of spooky fun are you
brewing up this Halloween season? 

Thank you for reading! Want to see more of what I'm up to?

Visit me on PINTEREST and INSTAGRAM, or like MY PAGE on Facebook!

Thanks for stopping by! ~ rachel

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AMAZINGLY Spooky Wax Seal Re-Creation with Rachel Whetzel

Hello, AMAZING creatives!! Rachel Whetzel, here again to show you what's inspiring me today! Halloween is one of my FAVORITE holidays. One of my favorite things to do, is create bottles for my Witch's Apothecary. Often, the bottles I like don't have tops or seals on them, and I love the look of wax sealed bottles, so for some of my bottles I re created the look of a wax seal using Amazing Casting Resin and Alumilite Black Dye! 

What recreations are YOU working on

this Halloween season using 

Amazing Crafting Products?

Please share your projects in the comments below! If you create something inspired by my idea, please leave a comment with a link here, so I can come and visit to see! I would love for you to visit me at my "house" too!! Thank you so much for reading!! ~ rachel

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How about a 20% Coupon to shop

for Amazing Crafting Products???

Use coupon code { celebrate } at

http://www.amazingmoldputty.com/products.cfm

Coupon Expires September 30, 2013.

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BoooooOOOoooook

Hey Everybody, It's Edie!

Normally I have a strict rule about waiting until October 1, to start watching Halloween movies or looking at Halloween decorations in stores. I don’t want all of the spook and excitement to be over before the season even begins. However, this year, I will be making a TON of Halloween themed projects, so I figured I better get a head start!

Hocus Pocus is one of my all time FAVORTIE movies! We watch it every Halloween without fail and someday I WILL make one of those witch costumes. Christopher and I decided to watch Hocus Pocus last week and I made the offhand comment that we should make Book. Before I had even finished the sentence, technique ideas flooded my brain and I exclaimed “We should make BOOK!!!!”

So… we did!

You can view the video with a full picture tutorial below.

Thank the Spirits for HDTV and a pause button! I have scrutinized this book for days and tried to get every detail as close as I possibly could. I found the perfect book to alter at my local thrift store. I thinned some of the pages and hollowed the middle of the book.

 

Next I started sculpting. I made the first knotted snake on a base using polymer clay. I started making the second snake but it was not tuning out as good as the first, so after some mental debating, I decided it would be much better to have a mold. I mixed up some Amazing Mold Putty® and created a mold for my knotted snakes. Since Amazing Mold Putty is oven safe, I was able to fire my polymer clay right in the mold which helped a lot! I made the two long snakes and the basic eyeball shape, also using polymer clay then fired them all in the oven for about an hour.

 

While the snakes were baking, I started working on the spine of the book. I sculpted the fingers with polymer clay, then I debated on how to fire them. If I pulled them off of the book, I risked ruining the shape and fit. If I left them on the book, I risked setting my house on fire. I decided a more precise replica was worth the risk, do after much dowsing with water, I put the book in the oven.



The original Book has an intricate clasp, with a circlet around the eyeball on the front, an animal claw on the back and a braided piece connecting them in the middle. I needed the clasp to be sturdy and hold up to regular wear and tear, so back to the polymer clay I went. I created the circlet and added a gem on the end. I had to make sure if fit exactly around the eye, yet still leave room for the stitches. Once that was finished, I sculpted the animal claw for the back, again leaving room for the stitches. I added tiny hinges to each piece, and then created the connecting braid to fit. All of the pieces were fired then painted with a coat of black, then layers of metallic silver to create the look of aged metal.

 

The next step was adding the stitches. I decided to use Creative Paperclay® instead of polymer for the stitches because I really didn’t want to have to bake the book two more times. I added Paperclay logs, and then sculpted the cuts and thread holes with a tool.

 

I painted the eyeball and attached it to the cover of the book, then using more Creative Paperclay® I sculpted the eye lids and creases of the eye.

 

 I needed to create the look of skin, so I covered the entire book with layers of tissue paper until I reached the desired look. Next came three coats of paint in flesh tones and titan buff, and that was just the under painting!

 

I still needed to darken and age the book, so I created several different washes of brown paint and just layered it on until I was happy with the color and look of the book.

 

While the cover was drying, I painted all of the large pieces, first with a coat of black, then layers of metallic silver to match the clasp. I made the base plates for the long snakes by embossing chipboard, then painting them to match the other pieces.

 

The stitching was the trickiest part for me because no matter what thread I used, nothing looked right and everything kept raveling. It wasn’t until I tried using help cord that I got the look I wanted. I spent four and a half hours cutting and gluing each individual thread on the book.

 

Once everything was set and dry, I glued all of the large pieces to the book using E-6000. I let it set for a full 24 hours before moving on to the final step.

 

 For the finishing touch, I added actual spells from the movie to the front of the book. I printed my pages, soaked them in a tea bath for aging, and then glued them in using gel medium. I had left a few original book pages in the front of the book, so I glued one spell page to the front and back of each of those pages.




And so, after five days of pretty steady work, that is how BoooOOOooook came to life :D

I love, love, LOVE the way Book turned out and I hope you enjoyed the tutorial. You can see more photos in the video slideshow below. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments section.
 

I was actually considering making and selling these replicas, as well as the eyeballs, so if you are interested in purchasing one, feel free to message me, or VISIT MY BLOG and leave a note in the comments.