Tuesday 7 April 2015

The Mould. A review.

You've seen this mould lying on my desk over the last few weeks. I'm a typeography sucker and Stampin' Up! knew that when they put this is their new catalogue. Of course there is a whole movement toward mixed media these days and SU! are never slow to produce a product that gets them into the mix. 


The mould is silicone and is every bit as non stick as it should be, am super impressed by that. It's just flexible enough to remove pieces without breaking them...and the pieces I've made have been quite brittle. I've used air drying products. First I used Crackle Glaze because for a gal who doesn't use Crackle Glaze, I seem to have a lot of it. I literally just let it run from pot to mould and fill each shape. It air dried over night and crackled beautifully..which meant of course that every letter came out of the mould in multiple pieces. Doh! So, if you want crackle effect letters, go ahead and use it, BUT add a coat of some other medium (Glossy Accents or PVA) on top of the letters to hold 'em together!

Of course, using a glue gun and drizzling in hot glue is a much quicker and cheaper way to acquire clear letters which of course you can then foil, paint, grunge..I dunno, whatever you do.

These letters and the heart were made from liquid pearls. You can see that I could have put a pin in the letter shaped 'well' to break the air holes that formed - particularly in the corners. I might next time, now I know. Again the pearls had to dry overnight and of course, they are not entirely dimensional, so these letters dried to about half the thickness of the mould. Quite useful, actually. Same happens with Glitter Glue...about half the bulk is just wet glue that evaporates. At the thickest, you can create a letter about 4mm deep if you use a medium like hot glue that doesn't actually 'run' once the mould is filled. I haven't used Fimo in it yet - that's more for scrapbook titles really and requires planning and forethought and hey I'm too lazy.
I like it. I consider it worth the £8, it's really durable and utterly non stick. My only question then...when can we have lower case and nicer fonts?
Oh and sorry - any American readers must be driven mad by my apparent mis-spelling. Mould. It's correct here in Blighty, promise!

9 comments:

Sue said...

Looks like that will be used a lot.

Hope you have a lovely day. Sue

Belinda Basson said...

Stamping up stuff is not avaialble here in sunny SA...the price we pay for the weather I guess. I do like the idea of alphabet and agree that a nice font in both upper and lower case would be great.

Fiona@Staring at the Sea said...

I'm a typeography fan too, but this mould didn't appeal to me. I have the buttons and flowers, which also release very well. I would not have thought of using liquid pearls, they give a lovely finish. Being a cheapskate, hot glue is my go to!

Helen said...

the font is definitely not the prettiest... but I did chuckle at your crackled letters falling to pieces when you released them... is that very wicked of me?! however it seems to work very well.

jodpea said...

I've bought this too, I'm a bit of a sucker for typography also...I've yet to unwrap it! I was gonna try mine with WOW! Melt-It Powder.

Lisca said...

I had been wondering how that would work.... thanks for the explanation. (I agree that the font could be improved upon.)

Ohhh Snap said...

I'm so glad you led by example with this mould : D. I haven't used mine yet, but it's on the list lol

misteejay said...

The liquid pearls have created a lovely finish. I tend to use mainly WOW powders in my moulds but Thermomorph works well too.
Toni xx

Kyla said...

I use an old chocolate mould that looks like a letterpress. Laughed at your crackle issues (I feel your pain)!!!

Thermo works good, as does hot glue with acrylic paint over after and some gilding wax if you want to colour them. Also resin works really well, air drying clay, fimo and also tried friendly plastic.

IMO resin works best and is nice and light and easy to colour (flock colours resin brilliantly).

Enjoy experimenting :-)
Kyla