After the little mermaid in the last craft post, I decided to use that idea some more and insert them into landscapes.

To do that you need some larger moulds and tools to shape the result afterwards. I built my single use moulds with thin wood and popsickle sticks, lining them with tape. This worked half- well.

One came out quite nice and shiny, which was lucky, but the other one not so much, which meant sanding. To give you an idea what that means here’s a series of pics demonstarting the process:

This is after sanding with a 120 grid to make the surface even.

At 400. My hands are already aching.

800 gridThe shapes start to come out.

1200 grid. Sorry for the bad pic. It was getting late.

2000 grid  We’re almost there.

3000 and various polishing pastes later.

I must say that even though I never got to the stage of “shiny” the unpolished piece has, I actually like the one I worked on more. I absolutely love the crinkled background of the tape in the unpolished piece, but the high gloss also gives it “aquarium vibes”, while the other one is more mysterious.

I also made matching earrings:

The whole thing left me frustrated with those  single use moulds, so I decided to finally use the mould making kit Marcus had sent me, but this is a story for another post.

 

Finally, some “leftover pieces” that also feature, you guess it, mermaids.