Embellished moulding for your centrepiece

Embellished moulding octagonal card by Neil Burley

With the launch of the new WOW! range of silcone moulds, I thought I would show you how I embellish then further to add depth, gloss and interest to your cards and layouts on our 'Nature' theme. Oh, and I've thrown in a bit more of the embossing powder resist technique for the border, as well as some tips for turning a square card octagonal!


Here's how:

You will need:
WOW! Pansy Silicone Mould
WOW! Opaque Primary Sunny Yellow
WOW! Earthtone Grape
WOW! Earthtone Pomegranate
WOW! Amber Rose Embossing Glitter
WOW! Melt-It
WOW! Violet Pearl
WOW! Primary Indigo
WOW! Collage clear stamp
WOW! Metallic Gold Rich Sparkle
Heat tool
Clear embossing ink pad
WOW! Embossing Ink Pen
Spun Sugar Distress Ink and applicator (or similar)
Pinflair glue (or similar flexible glue)

Instructions:
You will need to mix a heaped teaspoon of WOW! Melt-it with a quarter teaspoon of WOW! Violet Pearl and a quarter teaspoon (approx.) of WOW! Indigo in a metal tray and melt it using any method before pouring into the silicone mould. Keep the liquid hot as you pour by directing the heat gun onto it. Leave to cool for at least a minute. [Use a base mix to complement your final colour choices.]

Here's my moulded pansy - the flecks are the WOW! Indigo powder which hasn't mixed very well.

Take your WOW! Embossing Ink Pen and colour in the centre of the pansy. Sprinkle the WOW! Sunny Yellow over the top and brush away any that sticks to the rest of the flower using a dry paintbrush. Return any unused powder to the jar. You don't need to heat set until the final stage.

Carefully add ink to the next area, before covering it with WOW! Grape. This won't stick to the yellow, and the yellow shouldn't come off either... Brush off any excess as before and return to the jar.

Now ink up the topmost three petals and cover with WOW! Pomegranate. Brush off the excess.

Finally ink up the rest of the flower and cover with WOW! Amber Rose embossing glitter. Tap off the excess.

Now it's time to heat up the flower. Try not to linger too long in any area as the moulding will start to slump. Getting the powder to melt in the nooks and crannies does take a little longer. If things look to be a little too hot, stop, and allow the moulding to cool down before you try again.

As you can see in my picture, I have some slumping, and some white speckling - this is where the white core of the opaque powders has started floating on the molten powder beneath. This is why the moulding needs to be similar colouring to the final piece. I think it adds a certain something :)



To make a square card octagonal, you'll need a ruler and a compass. Start by measuring the diagonal across the card and set your compass to half the distance. Hold the card steady and the compass point at each corner in turn - swing the compass to either edge and slightly mark the edge of the card. You should end up with two marks either side of the corners. Put the ruler diagonally across the corner using the two marks as a guide and cut off the corners. I used the same technique to make my centre border, starting with a square of card stock  2cm smaller than the card. I cut the centre aperture by placing a ruler along each edge, drawing a line along the ruler's bottom edge and then cutting out the area outlined.

I used the hedgerow stamp from the WOW! Collage stamp set and clear embossing ink embossed with WOW! Metallic Gold Sparkle to decorate the border, masking off each segment in turn and embossing four sections at a time.

I then shaded with Spun Sugar Distress Ink, which is resisted by the embossing powder, to get the 3D effect and mounted the border onto the card with foam pads for depth. I used Pinflair glue to stick down the pansy in the centre.