I did some more moulding with it over the weekend using two different methods and the results are so different to each other.
The first one is really quick. Here's what I did:
I cut 3 different colours of Friendly Plastic - two of them are square and the third one rectangular because of how the mould is positioned on the mould mat.
Krafty Lady art mould AM344 3 Crowns
I worked with one piece at a time, placing it over the chosen shape, metallic side down and heated it with the heat gun until it became shiny and began to droop down into the mould. So that I didn't burn myself and have plastic sticking to my fingers, I dipped them in water first and then worked it into the crevices of the mould and when I was happy that all the mould was filled I placed the mould into a bowl of cold water for about 30 seconds and then popped the crowns out. That's pretty simple..... and really effective.
I made them up into a Christmas card (I know, I know, it's a bit early for Christmas but if I start making cards this early, there's a chance that I may be ready to post them off at the beginning of December instead of on Christmas Eve!).I used my trusty Cuttlebug to emboss the green card (this is fast becoming my favourite papercrafting tool) and then rubbed a bit of Rub 'n Buff over some of the texture. I also ran a piece of gold mirror card through the Cuttlebug with the same embossing folder and painted it with black acrylic paint. I wiped away most of it with paper towelling so that it was only left in the crevices - and voilà, it looks like embossed metal!
Some organza ribbon and pronged studs finish it off.
So it was on to the next method. This time, instead of cutting a square of Friendly Plastic, I cut narrow strips. I began with a piece of Fuchsia about 6mm wide which I cut it into 3 pieces. I placed them in the centre of the mould and heated with the heatgun as above. Once again, I wet my fingers and worked the plastic until the edges were melted together. Then I cut 5 strips from the Mother of Pearl stick and trimmed them to the right length to fit into each petal and placed them in the mould. I trimmed the offcuts into thin slivers and packed the sides of the mould where it was needed and then melted it with the heat gun. With wet fingers, I worked all the edges together until they were smooth. There were still a few gaps so I added more slivers and heated it again until it melted and smoothed again with wet fingers. Then I placed the mould into the basin of water until it cooled and popped it out. This was a little bit more time consuming but it gives a very different effect to the first method.This was the perfect centre piece for a necklace. All it needed was some simple beading to set it off. I chose pale green glass beads and chunky silver-lined seed beads which I threaded on tiger tail and then connected with jump rings to the petals - a really delicate looking necklace. The frangipani mould is also from Krafty Lady (AM344)