Mould Making and Stamp Mounting

I had my fourth chemo on Friday and although I felt awful for the rest of Friday, yesterday and today I am feeling quite a bit better and have managed to do a few things. The worst part has been raging peripheral neuropathy in my hands and feet and the only thing to do is to keep them as warm as possible – not easy doing things with 2 pairs of gloves on!! Last time I had a good weekend but then crashed for the rest of the first week, so I am hoping this won’t happen again. Things were much better in the second and third week though, so I think the reduced dose is helping.

Yesterday I spent some time working on editing images for one of the secret projects I am working on, and this morning I decided to make some moulds from the new metal embellishments and gearwheels I got on Ebay last week. For one of the projects I am working on, I wanted to use a particular rubber stamp from a set I bought ages ago but hadn’t yet used, and I hadn’t realised that I had never got around to mounting them, so I did that today, too.

Mould Making

In addition to the gearwheels, I also got a couple of metal pairs of wings and hearts from Ebay. All these metal embellishments are quite heavy for use on cards, and are better on albums and other projects, so I decided to make moulds from them – that way you can use the originals with impunity, but still have an endless supply! I make them up in Friendly Plastic or UTEE or polymer clay, or even Polyfilla One Fill (Joint Compound) – whatever takes my fancy.

I finished the EasyMold Silicone Putty (the purple sort) and then started the Amazing Mold Putty (yellow) to finish this project. Need to order some more of this!

The putty comes in two pots, one coloured and one white. You take equal quantities of each, and mix them together until you can no longer see any streaking, and then you press the object into it. It cures really quickly so you need to work fast – the large mould in the picture (the pair of wings and the heart) was starting to go off while I made the impression because I didn’t mix up enough to start with, so I am not sure how well that one will work. I can always make it again if it’s not a success.

Once they are set, you can pull the object out, but you shouldn’t use the moulds until they are fully cured. I usually leave them overnight to be sure.

Stamp Mounting

My last attempt at stamp mounting using EZ Mount Foam was a bit different! Usually this is a horrendously sticky and unpleasant job, and even with Tim Holtz’ wonderful non-stick scissors with their micro-serrated blades, they get coated with sticky gunk and have to be cleaned off, and it gets all over your hands… So last time I decided to use my hot knife, after seeing a Youtube video on this, and while it worked really well, it made the most humungous smell which took a long time to get rid of!

This time, therefore, I decided on the Talc Method. I always keep a jar of unperfumed talk on my work desk as it has all sorts of uses. This time I sprinkled some on the craft mat and rubbed some on the blades of the scissors and cut out the stamps which I had already stuck onto the ultra-sticky surface. I put the clippings into the talc and kept adding more to my fingers and to the scissors, and the result was pretty good!

Clean-up was easy afterwards – all the bits went in the rubbish bin and didn’t stick to my hands. I wiped off as much talc as I could from the surface of the stamps, and put them back on their packaging. The scissors had a bit of glue on them (minimal) and I used a quick spray of Stick Away from Crafters’ Companion (an essential part of my kit).

Nice job, eh?

More later, on how I use these things.

Another Valentine Card

We had lunch out with our friends David and Gisele today, and afterwards we came back to our house, and I showed her my ARTHaven and the card I’d made for my hubby for Valentine’s Day. She told me she had had a horrendous work week and hadn’t even had time to think about Valentine’s, let alone get a card or present, and she asked me if I could “knock something up.” This isn’t the normal way I work so it was a bit of a challenge, but I rose to it, and we did it together. She said more or less what she wanted, and I got going!

First of all I rubber stamped the butterfly background using two sizes of stamps and Tattered Rose Distress Ink, sometimes printing off the excess ink onto a piece of scrap paper first, to give a subtle, misty look, and then inked the edges with Spun Sugar Distress Ink. I then made a heart template and drew round it onto red card, reduced the size and drew round it again, and handed it over to Gisele to cut out. She loved my Tim Holtz scissors and I told her they were the best scissors I’d ever owned! I stamped these two hearts with a darker red ink pad, using the same butterfly stamp. I heat embossed the same butterfly shape with gold embossing powder, and stuck the larger heart down with double-sided tape. Gisele was fascinated to see the gold emerge as I heated the embossing powder – I remember how thrilled I was the very first time I saw it, and actually it still gives me a thrill! It looks like magic as the dull, grainy powder is transformed into pure gold before your eyes! The smaller heart was stuck down with dimensionals.

Gisele then chose some lace out of my lace bits box and I stuck this down with double sided tape before adding the ribbon and the bow. Again, she enjoyed seeing the bow being made on the bowshaper I bought at the show. She chose the little embellishment to go on the bow, which was one of the jewelled flower stamens I’d bought in the cake decorating shop. I then matted the card onto red card – A4 folded to A5 size, and the final touch was the little gold butterfly adhered with my hot glue gun.

While I was stamping and inking, she was busy making a ribbon rose – I had bought some gorgeous 2-tone green and pink wide, wired ribbon at the show, and showed her how to pull up the wire on one edge to form a ruche, and wrap the end of the wire round the base and cover the base and wire with florist’s tape to form the stem. She said she would like to put it on the envelope, so I found a plain white envelope and proceeded to decorate it to co-ordinate with the card.

Again, I stamped butterflies at random with Tattered Rose Distress Ink, and inked the edges with Spun Sugar Distress Ink. She chose some silk leaves from my stash, as she felt those went better with the fabric rose than paper ones, and I stuck it down with my hot glue gun. The final touch was another butterfly embellishment, this time in pink, again stuck down with my hot glue gun. Just room for her to write his name on the envelope!

We talked about butterflies and how we love them, and agreed that they are a symbol of freedom and beauty, and also transformation and growth, all important aspects of any marriage. On the card, she wanted to butterfly embellishment to look as if it had just flown up from the smaller heart, to symbolise that a real expression of your love for someone is that you don’t hold them down and control them, but allow them to be free – when they choose to stay with you, that love is really worth something!

At lunch today, I had no idea I would be in my ARTHaven today, or that I would make another Valentine card this year! We had such fun together in my ARTHaven, sharing ideas and having a good laugh too, and together we created this lovely card for her hubby. We both agreed what fun it was, working with someone else, and we are going to try and do it again soon. She saw my florist’s ribbon kit that I got at the show, and the flower which the man on the stand had made, and really admired it, so I said we could make some of those together – I want to make a tiny bouquet to go in a window card for my mum for Mothering Sunday.