Catching #Cre8time Fireflies... the Amazing Mold Putty Scavenger Hunt with Designer Crafts Connection

Hello everyone! Today the Designer Crafts Connection takes on a new challenge featuring one of my favorite things... Amazing Mold Putty. Amazing Casting Products has sponsored our challenge this month with the Amazing Mold Putty Scavenger Hunt.

For this challenge, Amazing Casting Products provided each of the Designer Craft Connection designers with Amazing Mold Putty and Amazing Clear Cast Resin. You want to pop over to the beginning of the hop HERE because you can win what you see in the photo above... an artist's dream PRIZE!!! An Amazing Clear Cast Resin and a 3lb. kit of Amazing Mold Putty {which is 1 1/2 lbs of each part of this magical goodness}.

How do I begin... what to mold? E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G!!!! Amazing Mold Putty is hands down my favorite tool in my crafty stash. It's quite addictive and over the years, I have used it in most every creation... cards, jewelry, food projects and dimensional whimsies! I have so many objects to mold I have a dedicated box to hold all the items. This is just what I molded with a handful of each part of the AMAZING yellow stuff! 13 molds!!! 

Paired with resin and the coloring of my choice... my imagination comes to life in 3D. Just like the wonderful pre-packaged, ready-to-alter resin pieces you can buy -- BUT -- even BETTER because it's totally custom and unique to me!

I have loads of things in a box of things to mold for arting and I never know what they will evolve into... I let them take on a life of their own. This project captured a rare specimen – the 'genuine angel firefly'.

This mini assemblage combines painty goodness with monoprints {created on my Gel Press® Printing Plate from last month's challenge}, and dimension combining a wooden canvas frame, a wooden spool, some bits and baubles and also a couple hand cast resin pieces.

Curiouser and curiouser... my muse came to play with an assortment of strips of words and phrases found in a paper art kit... that spell out 'genuine boy', 'angel' and 'firefly'. This interesting combination of words sent me off on a mission to create a 3D imaginary specimen inspired by some beetle and bug stamps.

Last month for the Gel Press Challenge, I made a bunch of monoprinted papers on book pages using my fabulous favorite punchinella from Gauche Alchemy. This paper is Cracked Pistachio and Blue Lagoon Ranger Distress Paint - just two pulls and this one is good enough for me!!! I love this color combination and how the text peeks through. It's the perfect base for my metallic resin assemblage.

Now onto the good stuff! Using Amazing Mold Putty, I made a mold of a gold leaf pendant in my jewelry box to serve as wings for this cool vintage handle I purchased online that looks like a bug body to me. I prepared my Amazing Clear Cast Resin mixed with some Alumilite Metallic Gold powder. Before pouring I brushed the molds with the same gold and also Alumilite Silver Metallic powder. When cured, the pieces look like real metal... but so lightweight and ready for use in any creative project. It's so AMAZING!!!

Before trimming my paper to wrap mini canvas, I traced around my resin piece with a pencil to lightly mark where I want to stamp the top and bottom of a beetle. I stamped with black pigment ink just the head and antennae of the beetle, then embossed with some black glittery embossing powder. TA-DA!!

You don't have to use the entire stamp the way it comes... you can just use a portion. I'm so happy I was able to work this out in my crazy mind without having to fussy cut this beetle. Now with the beetle parts in place, I can trim and mount this beauty to the mini canvas and glue inside the backwards facing frame. It looked more interesting that way.

I gave the resin pieces a rubbing with some dark pewter and silver Rub 'n Buff® and also some layers of black pigment pen brushed into crevices to bring out the details, then glue them in place forming my creature. 

I finished off the corners with some metal spider charms with loops clipped off, my word phrase assembled on a torn scrap of book page, and a wooden spool spritzed black wrapped with a scrap of silver thread and monoprinted book paper. 

I've caught my Cre8time firefly!

This may be small - only about 4" x 5", but this just makes me smile so big! I'm so happy to be able to bring a couple of hoarded vintage pieces to life in a creative way.

CLICK HERE to jump over to the beginning of the Amazing Casting Products Bloghop at the Designer Crafts Connection blog and find more AMAZING inspiration and projects using Amazing Casting Products!

To learn more about
Amazing Casting Products

visit www.moldputty.com/

For even more ideas follow @AmazingCasting Instagram Page!

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Thanks so much for visiting! I hope you are inspired to mold something for your arting! Sb :)

** This is a sponsored post. Alumilite Corp. has provided products for use in this project in exchange for my creative ideas, views and opinions. My ideas and opinions are my own.

We're all #Cre8time Mad Here... Designer Crafts Connection Gel Press® Bloghop

Hello everyone! Today the Designer Crafts Connection takes on a new challenge featuring monoprinted creations using the Gel Press® reusable gel printing plate. These are easy to use and so much fun for art enthusiasts of all ages.

For this challenge, Gel Press® provided each of the Designer Craft Connection designers with one of the Gel Press reusable gel printing plates. I have tried other variations at workshops, though I haven't tried out the Gel Press. I really love the 5" x 7" size as it's perfect for my smaller size art journal pages.

Along with the Gel Press® plate, I gathered some old book pages, letter and pattern stencils, punchinella, some texture plates made from Amazing Mold Rubber, a prepared cast resin embroidery hoop, Speedball brayer, Mod Podge, a few Ranger Distress Paints and Golden Green Gold fluid acrylic paint. I also need a pencil, scissors, Diamond Glaze, and a couple markers. The resin pumpkins are a separate project, though I need to paint up enough papers for collaging them in the same color scheme.

I set out the Gel Press® plate onto a cutting mat from the Dollar Tree {these work great for a protective work surface}. The Gel Press® plate sticks itself to the surface and stays put while you are moving your paint around with a brayer. I apply some Cracked Pistachio Distress Paint to the plate. I like using the Distress Paints for monoprinting as they are a little bit wetter than regular acrylics which allows me a little more time to work with while creating patterns in the wet paint.

I spread out the color evenly with my brayer then pressed my mold rubber texture plate into the wet paint. I pressed evenly across the plate then peeled back to reveal this beautiful circular pattern taken from a vintage decorative plate. I pressed the paper onto the Gel Plate® to transfer my first painted layer. I repeated this several times to make five sheets of paper that will all be similar when I'm done.

The second layer from the Gel Press® will be Mermaid Lagoon Distress Paint with this awesome punchinella design that I got from Gauche Alchemy. It gives a pattern that is a cross between a floral and an animal print. I am really loving how easy this is and how this is coming along! 

Of course you know I have to have purple... the third layer is Wilted Violet Distress Paint combined with a Tim Holtz mini Damask Stencil {THMST004 mini stencil set 4}. 

With the smaller size of this stencil, I needed to work quickly. I pressed the stencil onto the painted Gel Press® then rubbed a scrap section of paper to remove paint in the negative areas. I removed the stencil, then repeated two more times to completely cover the plate with the damask pattern.

This is the result of the third pull. The colors and variations of layers and texture are so interesting... and my recycled book pages are totally transformed into beautiful art. In about a half an hour, I have 5 finished matching patterns and a whole bunch of starters as a result of cleaning off brayer and leftover paint on the plate and stencils.

I select one of the finished Gel Press® printed papers and prepared my resin frame for mounting to this custom word art. FIRST I need to add some stenciled and hand written words... it's much easier to do this before mounting the frame.

I place the frame over the section of paper I want to use and I trace around the inside and outside edges of the frame with a pencil. This is so I can see where I need to center the lettering going forward.

Since I'm combining my hand writing with stencils - I go ahead and plan it out in pencil on a scrap of paper first. This is just for my piece of mind. For "embrace" I used a Tim Holtz ths011 Schoolhouse layering stencil and for "your" a generic lettering stencil from the art supply aisle at Michaels.

I traced the letters with a Black Sakura Pigma™ FB pen. The nib is a small size brush tip and it fit perfectly through the voids of the stencils. I added my freehand "crazy" then went back building up and filling in the letters with the pen. I also added a little doodling and flourishes. I blended out a bit of Seedless Preserves Distress marker in from the edges to add interest. I cut the circle out following the traced line of the outer edge of the frame.

I wouldn't have normally painted the backside of this resin piece - though I had a bit of a paint craftastrophe with the purple dauber top and had paint all over my hands so I rubbed some off on the frame, some paper and to my resin pumpkins. I ran a line of Diamond Glaze around the edge to adhere to my lovely word art.

I press down gently to adhere edges and let dry for a few minutes. Then I go and back trim any excess with scissors. I think I will add a sheet of self-adhesive magnet to the backside to finish this off so I can also hang it on my fridge.

I tied off a section of hand-dyed sari ribbon. BEA-U-TIFUL!!!

I love how the Amazing Mold Rubber picked up every tiny detail of woodgrain from the vintage embroidery hoop casting.

Embrace Your Crazy!

CLICK HERE to jump over to the beginning of the Gel Press® Bloghop at the Designer Crafts Connection blog and find more ideas of what to do with a gel printing plate!

To learn more about Gel Press®

visit http://www.gelpress.com/

For even more ideas also check out the Gel Press Facebook page!

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Thanks so much for visiting! For more +++++ inspiration visit the Designer Crafts Connection "Gel Press®" bloghop HERE. Sb :)

** This is a sponsored post. Gel Press® has provided a Gel Press® reusable gel printing plate in exchange for my creative ideas, views and opinions. My ideas and opinions are my own.