Heart In Hand For Mom by Diane

Hello creative friends!
 It's great to be back this month to share a fun and easy project with you.
This would be great for a Mothers day gift and can be tailored to your Mother's specific style and colors.

Heart In Hand Picture...

Getting started, you will need to gather a few supplies;
Creative Paperclay®. to purchase click here or go to any Hobby Lobby or Michaels store.
Basic sculpting tools.
paintbrush.
Hot glue or E6000.
Saran wrap.
Sharp knife or toothpick.
Scissors.
Your desired paint colors.
Your desired heavy cardstock.
A piece of paper for a template.
An old doily (optional)
styrofoam.
Frame
and Composimold ( if you want to make several molds of hands). to purchase Composimold go here.
Baby powder if using a mold.

This step is optional:
Because I wanted to use this frame for many projects, I decided to create a mold using ComposiMold.

Using a sharp knife, I cut out a piece of Styrofoam and placed it snuggly in the center of my frame.

I created my mold according to the directions on the ComposiMold product. However, in using the ComposiMold several times with other projects, I have found that using your mold release generously gives excellent results. For one of my tutorials using ComposiMold, where I go more in depth visit here.

After I created my mold, I made a cast using Creative Paperclay®. ( keep in mind, you will want to dust your mold with baby powder before you push your clay into the mold ).

Allow the clay to set about 10-15 minutes before removing from the mold.
Then, off to the oven at 200 degrees, turning over if needed to prevent curling or bending.
Bake until dry.

While the frame is in the oven,
Make a hand template and cut it out. I drew this hand, but it would also be so cute to use the outline of a childs hand.
 Roll out your clay on a piece of saran wrap to about 1/4-1/2" thick. place your template onto the clay and cut out with a sharp knife or toothpick.

With a wet paintbrush smooth and round out your edges.

With a toothpick create the fingernail on the thumb, and the cuff. then set aside.

Roll out more clay and cut out a heart using your toothpick or you can use a cookie cutter if desired. It can be as small or large as you like, you can judge by looking at the hand you just made.

Using a toothpick, I did a quick free hand design on the heart, then smoothed a bit with water.
Then, off to the oven for the hand and heart.. 200 degrees until done, turning if needed.

After the pieces were dry and cooled, I painted them using acrylic craft paint, then sealed each of them with a mod podge sealer.

Putting it all together, I created the back by making an oval backing using heavy card-stock, then cut and attached my desired colored card-stock to the heavy card-stock. I then cut the doily to fit and glued it onto the colored card-stock, then attached the hand and heart.

As you can see this quick and fun project can be done in so many fun and cute ways, this is just a basic design and tutorial that I've made, but your creativity and colors will make it your own.

Thanks for stopping by!
~Diane
Dianie Mac Designs

Bunnies Everywhere!!

Hi, there!! Carole here with a great new product to tell you about that you can pair with Creative Paperclay materials. It's ComposiMold, a mold-making material that can be re-melted and re-used.

To begin, anchor your original piece in a mold box. I used a one pint deli container as my mold box, and used a strong glue dot to anchor my original. I liberally coated the original piece and the interior of the mold box with a mold release agent, then sprayed everything with a bubble reduction agent. Both of these agents are available in the ComposiMold online store.

Next, I melted my ComposiMold in the microwave in 30 second intervals until it was completely liquefied. I used a wooden craft stick to stir the ComposiMold between each microwave session. Then, I slowly poured the melted ComposiMold over the original. I found that pouring slowly down the side of the mold box helped to reduce bubbles. Here's my partially filled mold.

Now, you have to wait a bit for the mold to solidify. Here's a picture of my completed mold with the original removed.

I cast my little bunny using both Creative Paperclay® and Delight™. After sanding, I finished the Creative Paperclay® bunny by painting with white pearlized acrylic paint. I used mica powder to tint the inside of the ears. and a dot of black acrylic paint for the eye. 

I finished the Delight™ bunny by tinting the inside of the ears with mica powder, painting the eyes with a dot acrylic paint, then coating the entire bunny with USArtQuest's Duo Adhesive. Duo dries clear, and is just tacky enough to hold the glitter that I coated it with. I think it looks like a sugary peep ;) 

Here's my whole litter of bunnies—just in time for Easter!!

Carole

Composimold Review and Honeycomb ATC

Hey Everybody, It's Edie, Do you ever buy random things because you just KNOW you’re going to make great things with it… someday??? That was the case with the neon green, silicone pot holder I bought several months ago. It looked like a honeycomb and I just KNEW I could make something super cool with it. I wanted to use it as a stamp, put it in a painting and at least five other projects came to mind just by holding and squishing that piece of random inspiration. The problem was, I didn’t want to USE the potholder because I only had one. I thought it was impossible to mold because it is so flexible and thin that is, until I discovered Compisimold! Compisimold is a pourable, food safe silicone mold that you can melt and remold over and over again and it was exactly what I needed for this project.

You can view BOTH full video tutorials below. I don’t own a microwave, so I melted my Composimold on the stove and poured it over the potholder. Once it was completely cooled, I removed the original and I had a reusable mold that looked just like my potholder! The Composimold did have a lot of bubbles which would ruin most molds but it actually enhanced this particular project, so I didn’t mind too much in the end. The Composimold instructions recommend stirring often, but I think that is what caused all of the bubbles. If I had just let it sit and melt, I don’t think I would have had near as many bubbles. Once the mold was ready, I broke out my Creative Paperclay® and started playing. I rolled out my Paperclay over the top of the mold which gave me an absolutely fantastic honeycomb texture, and then I cut my ATC out of the textured Creative Paperclay®. I let the ATC dry completely and then I painted it, glitterfied it and added the honeybee embellishment. I wrote out my quote, painted the paper and glued it to the ATC and then I covered the text with Glosssy Accents to make it shine.

Overall I was pretty happy with the Composimold and I plan on making more projects with it. If you have something that is an awkward shape or just too soft to mold, you may want to give Composimold a try. It worked great with the Creative Paperclay® and I am really happy with the way this ATC turned out. I hope you enjoyed this project and I hope you have a Valentine’s Day that is filled with love! BIG HUGS!
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