Designer Connection bloghop

Good day all,

Today we are hopping along with the artists of the Designer Crafts Connection who has taken on the challenge of creating Amazing Casting Products.

So head on over to our main page HERE and start the blog hop

This is a sneak peek of what I came up with for our bloghop

Thanks for hopping along with us and make sure to visit all the stops along the way.

Until next time...happy crafting!

Elephant Mosaic

Welcome to our Stencil Girl's Bloghop.  I'm super excited to share a fun project with you today, but first a little backstory about myself before we get into the tutorial.  My name is Brenda and I've been with Amazing Casting Products since the beginning and I've enjoyed every minute of it.  My blog is Creativity is a State of Mind because I believe each one of us has a different view on artistic talent.  I've definitely come a long way since working with this Amazing team.  Also working with these products has taught me so much and I've enjoyed learning new techniques.  Therefore, whenever we can partner up with another designer or design team, I look forward to expanding my horizons.  

Since I've been on the design team for so long, I've accumulated ALOT of pieces.

Anytime I'm making a project I wind up with more and more resin pieces.  Some finished, some not.  And this is how my project was born ...

I started out with a foam core piece that I cut to 10 x 10 and I painted green with acrylic paint.  Next I took my Stencil Girl Elephant Parade (which by the way is my obsession)

 

and traced the elephant with a pencil after the paint was dry.

It doesn't have to be perfect because I'm only using it as a guide.

Next I got out my box of resin pieces and began laying them inside the elephant outline.  It was kinda like putting a puzzle together.  Absolutely every one of these pieces has a story for me.

Here are a few pictures of some of the pieces I used with their molds.  (I've made ALOT of molds :)  The Amazing Mold Putty is still by far my favorite product.  I love duplicating little charms and such that I find while antiquing or junking because I don't want to use the original piece.  Especially in a project like this one.

Some butterfly charms

A Fleur De Lis I found in a box I bought at an antique shop.

The Fleur de Lis that I embedded into an 

Amazing Clear Cast Resin bezel.

Some leaves that were molded from a broach that I got

in a jewelry lot at an auction.

Branches that were hair barrettes to start out.

I just have tons and tons of molds...

After I had all my pieces laid out the way I like it, I glued them down.  After they were all securely adhered I took the piece outside and spray painted it black.

I didn't let it dry completely though.  

In fact, I took a hairdryer and gave it a 3 minute blast on the cool setting.

Stencil Girl's Ornamental Compass Screen was my next addition to this piece.  

I dry-brushed it with purple metallic acrylic paint around the edges of the corners.

While that was drying I also used the same acrylic paint and dry-brushed the 

elephant mosaic-ed pieces to give them some dimension also.

In my box of pieces I also found some roses I made a long time ago with the Amazing Clear Cast Resin.  I absolutely love how they looked like glass, but I did  want to give them a bit of dimension also.  I dry-brushed a bit of black and the purple metallic around the edges.  Just enough so that you can still see their clearness, but also some definition.  

After everything dried a little, I  saturated the entire piece with the Amazing Clear Cast Resin.  Not only does this give it a nice GLASS touch when it's cured, but it will also keep everything  in place.  But now here comes the magic.

I took a toothpick and ran it around the edges of the elephant outline while the clear cast resin was still wet and also within the stenciled area to "scrape off" some of the black and purple to expose some of the green base.  It gave is just enough color to make it pop.

After letting it cure for 24 hours I was able to display it in my elephant collection.  Now, the best part of this is it's weight.  If you would have used this many heavy trinkets, your piece would have been very heavy.  The Amazing Casting Resin is so super lightweight. 

This by far is one of my favorite projects up til now.

I totally love how this turned out and I hope you have found my tutorial useful.

Now for the bonus fun stuff.  There is a giveaway involved...

One lucky winner will receive both a $25 Gift Certificate to StencilGirl Products

AND a $25 Gift Certificate to Amazing Casting Products!

Visit the fabulous designers from both teams and comment for your

chance to win!

The more blogs you comment on, the more chances you have to WIN!

(One comment per blog please.)

You have until Sunday, April 23rd at 11:59PM Central Time to leave your comments.

Winner will be announced on

StencilGirl's Facebook page and Amazing Casting Products’s Facebook page

on Monday, April 24th.

So thank you for coming and hopping along with us today and be sure to leave a comment so you get entered in the giveaway.  Until next time, happy crafting.

Faux Coaster with Amazing Casting Products

Good day, I'm here again showing you how to create coasters using an everyday household object.  I have an obsession with coasters.

I started with a couple of lids from some containers that I hoard!  

I mixed up my Amazing Casting Resin which will give me a nice white layer 

and you can view the instructions HERE!

I poured the resin to about half way up the lid lip.

I found a wine cork print from the internet and printed it out

and cut circles a bit smaller than the lids.

After the resin set up which only took about 5 minutes

I painted some Mod Podge onto the hardened resin.

See how the resin isn't quite up to the top of the lid?

(I left the resin in the lids though and I'll explain later why I did that.)

Then I placed the circle papers onto the Mod Podge

and painted some more Mod Podge over the top

after the initial layer had dried completely.

I did let this set up for about 2 hours to make sure the

Mod Podge dried all the way.

If you look closely I did have a bit tearing

but I didn't get too worked up about that.

Maybe I should have left the Mod Podge dry underneath

a bit longer before apply more Mod Podge to the top.

After I made sure my Mod Podge had dried completely,

I pulled out my Amazing Clear Cast Resin and some glitter.

I mixed the resin up and you can view a video tutorial on that HERE

and poured a bit of glitter into the mixture.

and slowly poured it into the lids.

I let this set up for about 24 hours

and popped out my resin coasters.

They are gorgeous!

I had made one with some magazine paper also.

 I hope I've inspired you to use something you have laying around to create a mold.

What object would you use as a mold?

Thanks for stopping by and as always, have a great day and God Bless!

Anything But a Card challenge #48 Faux Glass leaf bracelet

Welcome to another post for Anything but a Card.  This month's challenge #48 is all about the OUTDOORS.  I so love creating for this blog, but sometimes time gets away from me.  I am here today to show you something I created a LONG time ago for another design team I am on.  I've been with Amazing Casting Products for 3 years now and love using all the products they have.  If you haven't heard about it, go HERE and see all the great things this group of designers have made.  I love creating jewelry and today's post is all about taking Out and About with you!

First start by mixing your Alumilite Violet Dye to part "A" of the Amazing Clear Cast Resin. Make sure to mix it up well and then mix that with your part "B" of the Amazing Clear Cast Resin again, stirring well to get it all mixed together well.

Then I used a piece of packing foam (recycled) as my sponge and "painted" it onto the ribbon coating both sides on top of a garbage bag. Leave your ribbon on the garbage bag to dry and it will just lift right off when it has dried. Once it's dry it becomes hard but yet still pliable. 

I made a leaf using the Amazing Clear Cast Resin with Alumilite (Flo) Green Dye. Doesn't it look like glass? I used a brown sharpie to add the veins on the leaf and then "painted" another coat of Amazing Clear Cast Resin over the top of that to shine up the "sharpie".

I attached the leaf with some E6000® and there I have an amazing fall bracelet. 

I also used my Crop-A-Dile™ to attach some eyelets to the "ribbon" and added a clasp.

I hope I've inspired you to make something for Anything but a Card and can't wait to see what you come up with.  There are only 3 simple rules to participate in this challenge.

1.  Use the Outdoors as your inspiration.
2.  Make ANYTHING BUT A CARD
3.  Have Fun

Thanks for looking and see you soon!

The Master's (magnets) at Anything but a Card Challenge #47

Good morning friends,

Welcome to another installation of Anything But a Card Challenge #47.  This month's challenge is all about the Masters!  When I first read that I got excited because I thought we were doing a challenge about Golf, you know the Master's Tournament.  Yeah, I got Golf on the brain because the season has begun!  Well, it wasn't so, instead we were to create something from the Master "Artists" as inspiration.  Oi, I cannot paint and got stuck on that idea, so I was having a hard time with this challenge.  I voiced my expression in the group and a team mate came to the rescue.  Thanks Elaine!  She provided me with this picture from Picasso 

and with that, a project was born.  Let's get started:

Now you all know I love creating with the Amazing Casting Products and with that being said I have lots and lots of resin pieces, but I also have just as much resin paper so to say.  When I over mix my Amazing Casting Resin I create extra resin pieces, but sometimes I just create resin paper.  You can mix up your resin and pour it out on some bakers paper in a thin layer and let it harden, or if I've over poured a mold I save the drippings.  So much fun!

Here is a picture of my many different pieces.

I found some white that was created by mixing the Amazing Casting Resin Part A and B.  There are some splotches of other stuff, I think a bit of glitter,but that won't hinder this project.

If the layer of resin is thin you can cut it with an ordinary pair of scissors.  

I cut out a square shape and rounded the corners.  I used the other side of the glittery piece.

Using an ordinary pencil I drew (doodled) directly on my resin piece.

See the colors on the piece, doesn't matter?

Then I grabbed my Sharpies to add some color ...

and colored my piece.  Cute, huh?

Now I mixed up my Amazing Clear Cast Resin and let it sit for a couple minutes to get all the air bubbles out.  Don't worry about getting them ALL out.  

Then I placed my resin piece onto my homemade doming board and 

poured the Amazing Clear Cast resin over the top and domed it.  

If you still have air bubbles, you can use your heat gun or blow on them to pop them.

Now I let that set up for a couple of hours.  Depending on the humidity and the depth of the resin,  it can take anywhere from 2 to 24 hours to set up.

Next step is to create my magnets.

Once my resin pieces were set up, I recycled (love recycling) 

an old magnet sheet by tracing my resin piece and cutting it out.

I applied a bit of E6000 to the back of my resin piece and a bit to my magnets and pressed them together.

I let them set up for about 4 hours before putting them onto my refrigerator.

Pretty cool huh?

Here is a nice closeup shot of the better of the two magnets.

You can see that the square magnet I created ran a bit.  I didn't let the sharpie dry completely.  You can always heat set your piece before adding your Amazing Clear Cast Resin.  The rectangle magnet turned our perfect though.  I just love my Picasso imitations!

I hope you will hop on over to Anything But a Card and join in on our challenge.  There are only 3 rules.

1.  Make ANYTHING BUT A CARD

2.  Use the theme "MASTERS"

3.  Most important HAVE FUN!

Until next time, have a great day and God Bless.