I picked up a few Mod Melts Molds a few months back. These are small molds (I think are made of silicone but it's not specified) that are made to be used with a special type of hot glue called Mod Melts. When I bought the molds I didn't plan to use them with the hot glue they were intended for because it seemed like (through YouTube videos) that the hot glue did not pick up the level of detail that I wanted and were very prone to air bubbles. I have recently picked up some of the Mod Melts glue and hope to do a comparison soon, but I expect the polymer clay is a way better medium for these molds.
The first pieces I made with polymer clay didn't work as well as I had hoped. I thought it would be good to warm up a ball of polymer clay and push it into the mold with extra sticking out over the mold. I did this so that removing the new impression would be easy by grabbing the extra clay sticking out over the edge. The pieces came out well, however, the extra cleanup was impossible. I tried cleaning up the edges both before and after baking and it just wasn't worth the effort.
What ended up working for subsequent pieces was warming up the clay in my hands again, but making sure to get the perfect amount of polymer clay, no extra, to push into the molds. If I had a little over the edge I used a scraper (piece of popsicle stick worked well) to level it out. I then put the mold in the freezer for a few minutes to help solidify the piece. Once the piece was firmer, I gently worked the piece out of the mold. I didn't want to bake the pieces directly in the mold because I am not sure what the heat properties are.
The chocolate bar earrings below were made using the Mod Melts Trinkets set.
So after I got the hang of the molds I decided to try to do some more advanced techniques. I wanted to make a chocolate covered strawberry using another piece of trinkets set. I conditioned three colors of clay, a small amount of green for the stem, a small amount of the same brown used for the chocolate bars, and red for the strawberries.
I placed the clay on a piece of paper and used a plastic pointy Sculpey tool to pick up very small amounts of clay at a time to push into the mold. I started on the leaves, making sure to observe where the transition between leaves and fruit was. The chocolate dipped portion on the bottom was next. I took a small blob of brown clay and used a ball ended Sculpey tool to push it smoothly onto the bottom of the mold. Then I took a piece of red clay and pushed it overtop the green and brown, which connected all the pieces. I put the mold in the freezer like before, and removed it from the mold. I needed to do these one at a time because there is only one of each mold type in the trinkets kit.
The finished piece make for a slightly large earring, so you could make one and attach a bail for a necklace instead. I am looking forward to trying other parts of the molds with polymer clay.
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