Sunday 11 January 2009

Paper Perfect embellishments

About 3 years ago, I bought some Paper Perfect. I had seen a demonstration and liked what the demonstrator did. Once I got the pot home, I played a little but the product didn't really grab me. About a year later I did some 'paper casting' with it and liked the results, but lubricating the stamps so it doesn't stick too badly and cleaning the mounted stamps afterwards is a real pain.

I opened the pot this week and saw that mould was beginning to grow on the walls of the pot but not on the product, so decided I had better use it or throw it away. I knew I needed some embellishments for some projects I have planned, so had a marathon paper casting session!


This is what the pot looks like, with a stamp coated in Paper Perfect at the top, a 'naked' unmoulded casting, and a 'finished' cast embellishment.


Here are some of the castings I made. They are hard to photograph, the detail doesn't show well until they are painted. I painted these with gesso, to give me a good base for using other paints later.


The process I use is as follows - ink up your stamps (preferably unmounted) really well with Versamark watermark ink. I have a suspicion that maybe ArmorAll or silicone spray may be an even better way of making your rubber stamps non-stick, but I don't have any to hand so used the Versamark. Dump a spoonful of Paper Perfect onto your stamp and spread it around with a palette knife. It needs to be somewhere between 1/16th and 1/8th of an inch (about 2-3mm). Now, put it somewhere warm and dry for as long as you can bear - at least 12 hours and preferably 24 hours. The airing cupboard is a good place, I have a radiator in my craft room which is permanently on, on a very low setting, and I lay them on top of that. They often stick when I try to uncast after 12 hours, but are much easier to unmould and less likely to stick after 24 hours.


Here are some examples of half dry pieces, what a stamp looks like when you've just taken the cast off, a couple of dry casts, and a couple of casts that have been painted with metallic acrylic paints then rubbed with Treasure Gold. Unmounted stamps clean up well if you put them in a bowl of warm water for a couple of hours, mounted are much harder to clean as you can't soak them.

2 comments:

  1. What a great way to use unmounted stamps for something other than plain old stamping. I love the texture they give, and hand made embellishments are always so much better - plus you can make just the right one. I'm guessing it would be a good idea to do lots of these at the same time. And, I'm gratified to hear that I'm not the only one who buys the best products and demo and then takes years to finally use them. (-;

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  2. As always simply wonderful!
    I have left you a butterfly award on my blog.
    Elizabeth
    http://thelastdoordownthehall.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete

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