AMAZING Inspiration from Sandra Strait...

I’m so excited to be a guest designer for the Amazing Crafting Products Creative Team! I was asked to do an inspiration post, so I’m going to try and make you as excited about these products as I am.

For my sister-in-law’s birthday, I wanted to give her something practical that was still a work of art. I happened on a spiral-bound notebook of window envelopes. Merri’s always looking for things to put her papers in, so I knew this was perfect for my project.

A magazine page from an old quilting magazine, a layer of Amate woven bark paper, and oh, so many objects-watch parts, screws, shower rings, beaded bracelets, plastic packaging – all molded in Amazing Mold Putty and created with Creative Paperclay®. Twine, fiber paste and drywall tape were added for contrast and this functional book of envelopes looks like a treasure trove washed up on a sandy beach. Now I just have to decorate each envelope with tangle patterns, and she’ll have artful inspiration for every day.

Now the great thing is that I can easily recreate this cover and make similar gifts for other people! I like that. Inspiration gets stretched around Christmas time and I love ideas I can retread.

My tip for today: If you are looking for something to mold (and once you start, you’ll keep looking!), consider breaking something you don’t need. Seriously. I don’t recommend breaking glass or items that splinter, but pop open those old watches, break off a piece of coconut shell, tear up that old crafting project and mold those rolled paper roses you made long ago. Look beneath the surface and you’ll find textures, and objects that you never dreamed were there.

For more of my work in Amazing Mold Putty, zentangle-inspired art, and daily links to tangles, tutorials, and giveaways please visit my "Life Imitates Doodles" blog.   ~ Sandra Strait

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AMAZING Twisted Metal Art with Rachel Whetzel

Hello AMAZING fans!! Rachel Whetzel here!! I'm here today, to show you how I most recently used Amazing Mold Putty and Amazing Casting Resin to create a piece of art work. I'll also share a little bit about what happens when you have a plan, and it doesn't go the way you hoped. Here's a peek at what I made!

and the piece as a whole

To create your piece like this, you'll need the following:
Various pieces to mold! I used: A starfish, Frame Piece, and a Key.
Thrifted fabric
Craft Paint (I prefer Folk Art Acrylic)
Dictionary pages
Elmer's glue
Clear Gesso
String
Vintage spoon
Drift wood
Amazing Mold Putty
Amazing Casting Resin

First, you'll need to mold your pieces. For this piece, I had an idea... and I wanted to use some of the molds I had made before. I reused the molds from Frame Piece, and a Key. For a recap of how to mix-up a batch of Amazing Mold Putty {CLICK HERE}.

I also wanted to try and mold a starfish.

One of the things I had planned to do, was to use stamps on the Amazing Casting Resin during the stage when it has set, but is still pliable. I wanted to get the look of stamped metal on my keys. I thought I would try both metal and rubber stamps.

  

It turned out, neither worked for me... the soft resin "healed" and my metal stamps weren't strong enough to make an imprint once the resin was more firm. I didn't let that set back stop me though! While I was working with the soft, early set resin, I had an idea. I'll tell you about that in a bit. I'm getting ahead of myself.

Pour your molds, and watch them as the resin starts to set. Amazing Casting Resin starts out clear, and the turns while as it cures. Once your piece is completely white in the mold, you can pull it out.

At this stage, (the early set) you can bend the pieces. Which is what I decided to do with my keys once I realized I wouldn't be able to stamp them like I wanted. I got to thinking about how neat it would look for KEYS to be bent!! Thing is, what caused the stamps not to work, also makes it tricky to bend Amazing Casting Resin and have it STAY that way until it's fully cured. So I used tape.

Once the resin cured, there was no bending it back!! Here is a picture of the key I ended up using, on the piece. You can see the bend in the key!

I spray painted the Frame and Keys black for their base coats, but I wanted to take advantage of the white base for my starfish. I painted the starfish orange, and wiped off much of the paint from the ridges on the piece. However, Amazing Mold Putty captures details SO WELL, that my molded piece was a rough as the original, and taking paint off to the white base wasn't working as well as I wanted, so I used some white paint and my finger tip, and rubbed white over the top of the piece. Worked like a charm!

While my starfish was drying, I cut my background fabric, and glued Dictionary pages to it. Once the glue was dry, I used clear Gesso over the pages and fabric, and let it dry. Next, I dripped paint down the pages. When I dripped the paint, I needed a firm support for the piece and the fabric, so I used a clip board.

Once the paint was dry, I got to work assembling the pieces...

Here's another angle, so you can see how the bent key looks.

I'm so pleased with how this came out, and I LOVE it when I come up against things not working quite as planned... It's even better when those bumps turn into something really cool!!

Do you have some metal you would like to twist up?

If you create something inspired by my project, 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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AMAZING Inspiration from DeeDee Catron...

Hello everyone!! DeeDee here today, back in a familiar place and super stoked to share my molded goodies with you again ;) --- ok ok not THOSE goodies, besides.. they're all real! But my molded ITEMS :D

One of my favorite things is finding vintage figurines and replicas to mold and cast for use during my crafting. To date my favorite FOUND object to mold has been a super old nautical themed frame. It came complete with pier pieces, two pelicans, a net, shells, an anchor and more! You bet your sweet self I molded each piece separately and again in combinations with each other. Now when I'm working on a nautical themed piece I always get out my molds to see if I can work them in! Here are THREE different projects I've used my lovely pelicans on!

(All three were molded with Amazing Mold Putty and cast in Amazing Casting Resin which dries white!)

The first is a WOODEN SPOON that I altered for the lovely Susan M. Brown - she held a spoon altering blog hop and it was SO FUN.

The shells on this are actual shells from the beach, accompanied by May Arts ribbon, cheese cloth, and some Tattered Angels glimmer glaze.

The 2nd project is a LAYOUT that was featured in the SPRING 2013 issue of Somerset Memories! Here's a corner shot of the resin piece :)

Along with the resin bits I've used half pearls, cheese cloth, Tattered Angels glimmer glaze, MME paper, and Viva Las VegaStamps! images.

And finally here is an altered tray:

This tray was featured on the CropChocolate blog last month, and is currently featured for the "April Showers" at Anything But A Card Challenge this week! It has Teresa Collins papers, tape and enamel dots, Thickers, Viva Las VegaStamps! stamps, cheese cloth, ranger ink and more.

What are some of your favorite vintage finds to mold?? How many times have you used them? Over and Over?! that's ME! :) :)

Visit me at my blog for more molding goodness, details on some of these pieces, and some fabulous inspiration!