So after choosing some interesting shapes from earrings, brooches and buttons plus some cabochons I began to make moulds.
For anyone who has never done this - you take equal parts of each colour of the putty and quickly mix it together them mould around your shape. For pouring UTEE jewel enamel you need deep moulds so I made sure the sides were steep enough. I left them for about 10 minutes to cure and then released my objects.
This is a picture of the finished moulds
Over the holidays I had gone through all my odds and ends of poured UTEE and consolidated colours. So I decided to use this for trying out the moulds. First I dipped into my red, orange, copper and gold tub of bits. Melting some together but not stirring totally gave me an almost carnelian look which I poured into a cabochon shape and a little earring mould plus an unusual figured pear drop which I made from a large earring.
After cleaning out the pot and keeping leftovers - because I really like this colour - I turned to some gorgeous malachite green than I had leftover.
I melted it and poured a straight colour into a large flower button shape
Then I added some gold to one side of the melt pot
I really liked this effect but I know that adding too much gold can really muddy the colour mix so I sprinkled some gold jewel enamel powder into the mould and then poured.
Once cool I took the shape out of the mould and used the heat gun to melt the gold powder
I decided to try this effect again but using copper instead of gold into the mould before pouring
this is an amazingly rich result and quite controllable
I had a little bit left in the melt pot so added some clear to produce a sort of old recycled glass effect
I really like these moulds and together with the button moulds I think I have a great set of shapes for future experiments. I tried out all the moulds, remelting those I didn't really like. One mould which I have had a go at and had a stunning result I wanted to show you all but sadly as I was positioning for photos I managed to drop it onto the kitchen floor and being UTEE of course it smashed.
It is the cat mould....so watch this space......
UPDATE
Just thought you might like to see what I did with some of the pieces from these moulds
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the green pendant is deep enough to be able to wire wrap and the little earrings which remind me of carnelian have just enough of a dangle and are so light you don't know you are wearing them
