GPP Street Team Crusade #20 - Casting

Haven't done one of the GPP Crusades before, simply because I never ever had any time to play and do stuff 'just because I want to' - it was all trying to meet deadlines and schedules and blah blah blah..... Well now I have and its blissful and this sounded cool so I gave it a try.

Michelle gave lots of examples of ways to make paper casts, and I went with possibly the simplest and quietest - using paper tissue layers on a rubber stamp to make an impression. It was after 10pm, didn't fancy getting the food processor out or turning it on (too damn LOUD!) and I don't really have any obvious 'moulds' to use (although Im betting I have some stuff I can use, I just need a rummage!) so rubber stamps it was. I did 2 first, using the brush with water on to pat the plain white tissue into the relief on the stamps - and then a third one a little differently (more on that in a sec). They were all left to dry over night. I realise now that taking a photo of them before I started colouring them would have been good - oops. Here are the finished casts, coloured with perfect pearls and glimmer mists.



The third cast, as I started to put more plain white tissue on, I thought 'wouldnt it be good if I could add colour now?' so I did. I put one layer of tissue onto the stamp, then patted distress ink pads over the top. Then carried on applying more layers of tissue. I had no idea how this was going to look till I removed it from the stamp in the morning. It worked quite well! Again - a 'before added colour' pic would have been good. This is it after some perfect pearls and a wee spritz of glimmer mist was added.


So this morning I decided to have another go and make one with more detail in the impression, and I first lightly inked up the stamp with Archival black ink, then pressed the first tissue layer to it. Left this a couple of mins to dry so it wouldn't bleed out, then brushed the layer with water. Next, I used my finger to dab distress ink all over the tissue covering it and taking away all the white areas. Then built up the layers as before, and set aside to dry.

While it was drying, I used 2 of my first casts on a couple of little projects. The alpha cast I made into an ATC, with an inked and stamped cardstock background. The watch face I attached to an inked and stamped tag that's going on the front of a card.



So after what seemed life forever waiting for the paper to dry on the last cast, it was finally ready. I'm not 100% sure on the effect of this one, the darker base possibly makes the relief not as interesting? Love the background colouring though. I'm going to try a few more with different/lighter colours in the relief. This has also had a spritz of gingerbread glimmer mist.


I wouldn't recommend leaving ink on your stamps that long, mine are already very stained and messy so I didn't mind, but if you are a sensible crafter who always cleans their stamps straight away this is going to stain them.

So that's my very first crusade! I'm so excited that I finally got to play along with one of the blog challenges I read every week and never do - maybe I can do the Gothic Arches one next....