Directions:
Condition and roll out a sheet of any color clay you want.
Place the whole sheet on to the glass, you don’t need a real large sheet if you are doing fairly short sentences and words to begin with) 2 ½” square should be plenty, don’t flatten the sheet or press on it very hard, your finger pressure will put valleys in the surface of the clay.
Place the individual letters in a row on the surface of the clay. (The words on the lower left in turquoise are already made and baked.)
Don’t press them in yet.
You can also use tweezers to do this. I usually lick the tip of my finger just a bit and pick up the letter and place on the surface and then move it into place with a needle or toothpick being careful not to mar the surface of the clay.
Place the letters and space them evenly.
Using the back of the stamp, place it on the letters and press gently but evenly to push the letters into the clay just a little bit. Do not press farther than half way in. If you do, start again with a fresh sheet of clay.
Remove the stamp and make another word, continue forming words and pressing them in. Or you can place all your words in the size of the foam backed stamp and press them in all at once.
With your clay blade cut the words into little squares or rectangles of words, do not remove from the glass or separate. If it is a sentence, place the letters in a row and cut into a long rectangle and I will show you later how to make different forms of word sections.
I have made Happy Birthday in blocks, because these are the only two words I am making, I cut away the excess clay around them. Bake the words and the glass in the oven at 275 degrees for 20 minutes. Shut off the oven and let the glass cool before removing from the oven and going to the next step. Leave your words and clay attached to the glass.
Mix equal parts of your molding silicone together. The instructions come with the product. I am using about ¾” balls of each compound.
Flatten the molding compound into a little pancake, so that when you place it over both your words it is ¼” bigger than the words all the way around and about a ¼” in thickness. I am molding both words together.
Place over the words and gently compact the molding compound to the words with your palm and then go around the outside of the molding compound and push gently towards the little blocks of words with your forefinger. Once you have made a couple of these you will find the optimum thickness for you and your work. If you happen to press through, move more of the compound over the area. You should work fast you have only a few minutes before it will start to set up.
Let the mold set up.
15-20 minutes should do it, you can check by using your finger nail and placing it into the out side edge of the mold, if it makes and indentation it is not done. When the molding compound is set up it will dent with your nail but bounce back quickly when you take your nail away.
When the mold sets up you can take the mold away by slipping your clay blade under a small edge of the mold, when you can pull it back, pull it off with your fingers so as not to cut into the mold with the blade.
Bend the mold back slightly to release a corner of a word block.
Take out the words; sometimes the letters will stick in the molding compound remove with a toothpick. As always, the more you do something the more comfortable it becomes, practice with simple words and small amounts of molding compound to start. |
