I'm having an AMAZING #Cre8time Moldmaking and Casting... Day three of the "See You at CHA Blog Hop"

Welcome to day three of the "See You at CHA!" Bloghop. This upcoming CHA Mega Show will be it's 75th year celebrating creativity. Yes this is a party and there are plenty of chances for you to win the AMAZING bloghop prize. To get back to the top of the hop and catch up on day's one and two CLICK HERE to jump over to the Craft and Hobby Association's Blog.

CHA has been an event that I have attended as a retailer {when I was an instructor at my local scrapbooking store}, and now I attend as a CHA Designer Member with my business SMBdesign, and also as a working artist demonstrating at the big event. This upcoming CHA Mega Show will be my 5th year attending. I travel cross-country from Florida, the land of Disney World to attend this event that happens just steps away from Disneyland. Can you believe I haven't been to Disneyland yet?? My first time attending, my sister and I drove down to Huntington Beach for dinner and put our feet in the sand {it was way too cold that year to put our feet in the water}. 

You can find me demonstrating at the Amazing Casting Products/Alumilite Corp. Booth #2400... come and try out Amazing Mold Putty and see the other products in action.

For the celebration I'm sharing this mini pumpkin project using Amazing Mold Rubber, Amazing Remelt, and Amazing Casting Resin. 

I love creating molds in Amazing Mold Rubber and I decided to make molds of three different mini pumpkins {please CLICK HERE to view mixing/preparation}. This project shows how I made a mold of the smallest of my teeny weeny pumpkins – it's not a pretty mold on the outside and I had to do a little extra work to make this mold usable. 

Amazing Mold Rubber is a liquid silicone which is fast curing and captures every little detail. I figured since it was starting to thicken up really FAST {it's still super humid summer time here in South Florida}, my pumpkin would stay submerged... NOT!! Before putting the pumpkin in the mold rubber, I dipped the top with the stem into the liquid silicone and let all the airbubbles dissipate before fulling submerging into container. So I had to sit there and keep pushing it back down and dragging the liquid silicone over the top.

**A TIP** Don't use a SILICONE spatula in liquid silicone – use a plastic knife or spoon. If you don't clean it off immediately, the liquid silicone fuses to it. My nice purple spatula now has a pink tip.

In preparation, I had a couple sections of old cut up molds submerged to keep the pumpkin from settling all the way to the bottom {you can see the yellow peeking through the mold}. I planned setting it upside down so the stem would be at the top of the mold and I would cut a nice size "X" at the top to gently free the pumpkin from the mold. Since the cured mold is all bumpy at the top, I need to backfill to make it level. I could do this with another pour of Amazing Mold Rubber... but since I had a mold fail on a previous pour, I'm fresh out of my pink magical goop and my local store was out - yikes! So I can fix this in a jiffy with Amazing Remelt, so I can use my mold right away - and I can go back with another layer of mold rubber later for a permanent fix.

I melt down some Amazing Remelt in the microwave and pour on top of Amazing Mold Rubber, filling the bowl to the top. I set this in the refrigerator for a bit to cool off and solidify quickly. I was busy messing about with other molds I was casting so I wasn't paying much attention to how long I left it in the fridge {sorry}.

So now my mold is level and the Amazing Remelt formed exactly to the shape of the Amazing Mold Rubber mold... and it doesn't stick to it permanently. When I'm done casting resin, this can be cut up, remelted and reused for something else!

I attached a mini binder clip to one of the sections of the "X" cut at top of mold, prepared a small batch of Amazing Casting Resin and then poured into the mold. I set aside to cure for about 20 minutes. I let cool a bit and removed first casting from the mold. The detail is so AMAZING!!! But I have a couple large air bubbles that were trapped in the mold – I forgot to poke around inside with a toothpick before the resin solidified. No worries... this baby won't go to waste! I filled the holes with some air dry clay and sanded back the edges – all fixed.

The paint I wanted to use wasn't a bit too fluid for this purpose, so I gave the entire resin pumpkin a coat of clear gesso – an easy fix! Once dry I rubbed on some Ranger Distress Paint in Cracked Pistachio {a lovely teal green}... I'm in LOVE!!

When dry, I mixed another small batch of Amazing Casting Resin colored with some Cotton Candy Alumidust. I poured some off into molds and saved the rest for topping my pumpkin. This is what I did... I waited for the resin to start to get thick and I dipped the pumpkin into it a couple times right as it was about to solidify. As it started to turn opaque, I turned it upright and sprinkled a rainbow mix of seed beads to serve as sprinkles {I mixed these myself from my 30 separate colors of seed beads}. This is so adorable... but it needs a little something, right?! I wanted to add a little more.

I waited for resin to fully cure and gently rubbed off the seed beads. They came off pretty easy. I mixed up another batch of Amazing Casting Resin with the Cotton Candy Alumidust and dipped again. Now the stem was completely covered. I used a mini file to make little hole in the top of the pumpkin to accept a piece of wire and wire-wrapped a stem to hold a candle and attached a glass leaf bead. Perfect!

This pumpkin is ready just in time for the See You at CHA Celebration! What item have you been dreaming to mold to use for your creative projects?

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Now for the giveaway instructions... there are three ways you can enter via Rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

There are just three entry options to win our $500+ $650 Visa gift card:

• Leave a comment on this blog post below (mandatory) answering the question - "What is your favorite "can't live without" craft supply or tool?"
• Tweet about the giveaway (tweet text includes #CHAshow hashtag; you can tweet daily for extra entries)
• Answer a multiple-choice poll about how often you "cre8time" for crafting (double entry value).

Anyone and everyone in the US and abroad is eligible to enter, even you and your team. CHA staff are the only folks who are not eligible.

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Thanks so much for dropping by! I hope I get to meet you at CHA next month. I'll be demoing with my fellow amazing creatives at the Amazing Casting Products/Alumilite Corp. Booth #2400. Stop by and say HI! See you at CHA!!!  Sb :)