{"id":3969,"date":"2009-05-05T02:46:20","date_gmt":"2009-05-05T09:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/?p=3969"},"modified":"2009-05-04T16:19:54","modified_gmt":"2009-05-04T23:19:54","slug":"making-molds-for-polymer-clay-beads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/making-molds-for-polymer-clay-beads\/3969\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Molds for Duplicating Your Favorite Polymer Clay Beads"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/images\/blog\/2009-05\/05-heart-shaped-polymer-clay-bead-2009-01-24-053.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Heart Shaped Polymer Clay Bead From A Mold\" hspace=\"0\" vspace=\"0\" width=\"250\" height=\"188\" align=\"left\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-size: large;\">Time Saving Techniques for Jewelry Bead Making Projects:<br \/>\n<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">The quickest way to make multiple copies of your favorite buttons, beads or charms, is to use a simple mold that can be filled with polymer clay to create<\/span><!--more--><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> copies of the original. That&#8217;s exactly what I did with the molded heart bead in today&#8217;s photo.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">The other side of this heart bead is shown in another post where I also explained how to make a mold using scrap polymer clay. Here&#8217;s the link: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/heart-beads-valentines-jewelry-polymer-clay-mold\/2335\/\">Heart Beads For Valentines Jewelry Made Using a Polymer Clay Mold<\/a><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Besides using scrap polymer clay to make your molds, there are several other mold-making materials you can use as well:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: large;\">Sculpey Super Elasticlay Mold Maker:<\/span><\/strong> Sold in a 1\/2 pound box, this somewhat flexible polymer clay makes for easy removal of molded clay projects. And because it is very soft, detailed patterns replicate or transfer nicely. By the way, small amounts of this clay can also be used as a conditioner for very hard clays.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: large;\">Sculpey SuperFlex or Bake and Bend Clay:<\/span><\/strong> This polymer clay based material is more rubbery and greasy than regular polymer clay, but it makes nice flexible molds and texture sheets.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: large;\">Silicone Molding Putty:<\/span><\/strong> A &#8220;2 part&#8221; mixture type of product that I have not yet tried&#8230;. but have heard good things about. Miracle Mold and Alley Goop are a couple of other brands which do the same thing. Basically you mix some of putty A and some of putty B together, and then using a release agent (such as oil or whatever they recommend), you push your object into the mixture and let set. Many of these silicone molds can withstand heat, and can therefore be put into the oven with your polymer clay (works with liquid clays too). The silicone mold materials are more expensive than the polymer clay based ones, but they are supposed to be more durable and versatile.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"font-size: large;\"><strong>Hot Glue:<\/strong><\/span> Now this technique is really cheap, and kind fun&#8230; although it won&#8217;t reproduce fine details very well. All you do is melt a puddle of hot glue onto a nonstick sheet; Spray some Pam cooking oil onto the piece you want to mold; And then stick it in the glue before the glue hardens. I used to use this hot glue trick to create texture patterns for making paper and it worked quite well in a pinch.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">There are several other ways to make polymer clay bead making molds&#8230;. but they&#8217;ll have to wait for another day.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/images\/blog\/cindy-sig.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Cindy Lietz Signature\" width=\"114\" height=\"99\" align=\"right\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/images\/blog\/polymer-clay-tutor.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Polymer Clay Tutor\" width=\"200\" height=\"26\" align=\"right\" \/><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Time Saving Techniques for Jewelry Bead Making Projects: The quickest way to make multiple copies of your favorite buttons, beads or charms, is&#8230;&nbsp;<span class=\"cmtcnt\">21<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,21],"tags":[2602,1162],"class_list":["post-3969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-supplies","category-techniques","tag-faux-ceramics-pottery-glass-surfaces","tag-molds-stamps-stencils"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}