Crafting Goodness

Krafty Lady Art Moulds are pretty amazing – they can take a whole lot of abuse and they still come out fighting. This time I blasted them with one of those neat heat guns from Ranger, guaranteed to get the heat in the right place every time without a blast of air to scatter everything everywhere.

So, I was supposed to be making a necklace with Friendly Plastic – which, if you haven’t used it is a totally cool product. Since I’m the kind of person who routinely colors outside the lines, I looked at the Friendly Plastic and then at the first of my new designs from Krafty Lady which features my African mask carvings and thought that here was a way to get out of making necklaces sitting right in front of me. How would Friendly Plastic work in my moulds? Giving only a passing thought to the possibility of frying the moulds I placed some pieces of Friendly Plastic in them and melted it by waving the heat gun over it!

Some what to my surprise, I admit, the plastic melted and the mould was fine. I left the plastic to cool in the mould and then, with the help of some cold water, the plastic molded shape popped out. Needless to say the necklace project was left standing in the dust and I spent the next hour molding colorful African masks from Friendly Plastic some of which you can see in the photo.

If you’re doing this at home, start with Krafty Lady Art Moulds – they work well because of what they’re made of and other molds may not stand this abuse. In deep moulds like the African masks work by layering strips of plastic inside the mould instead of using one big piece of plastic because the big pieces sort of drip into the mould whereas using strips lets you plan stripes, dashes and all sorts of designs. Zap the pieces with the heat gun and watch as they melt into the shape. Then set aside for a few minutes to cool – don’t touch them because they’re hot! Then pop the mold and Friendly Plastic into a tub of water and pop out the finished pieces. Too easy… and way fun. MZ.