GE Caulk Crafting

Let me first make it crystal clear that I am not a crafter, and I am most certainly not a 'craft blogger'. I have feelings of awe and fear inspired by those people. Until recently, I thought Etsy was a new anti-depressant and wondered why I was being left out.

With that said, I am about to describe my one time only amateur venture into the world of crafting. Hold me.

Why was I willing to learn a new craft? Well...mainly because:

1. I got free samples! And although the free samples of stuff you can eat are better, there is a whole big world out there. Also?






2. Caulk blogging. If you don't think that's funny then you are just not trying. Say it out loud.

GE probably intended for their new silicone caulk singles (insert little registered trademark symbol here) to be used for home improvement projects, but when I started looking around our house for a good project to document, I realized that the box of samples I had received were but a fraction of what we would need to try and glue our sagging cabin porch back together with caulk. Look carefully:

See? Seriously, that's a lot of caulk.

So, craft projects were the obvious answers to both the use of the caulk, and the continued procrastination of home improvement projects.

The easiest looking project was a glass rock-decorated glass candle holder. But by the time my daughter was happy enough with her design to fix it with the caulk, I realized we had no more clear silicone. I promised her I would pick up some more so we can finish this:

But far more appealing (and challenging), was the concept of DIY silicone stamps from a design of choice. Yes, it appears that silicone might be used for a good solid material for stamps. Who needed rubber? And DIY? Who needed a challenge?

(Apparently, I did.)

I decided to go with a Hawaiian theme, and printed out some simple design templates which I imagined would be easily carved into a mold.

I used paraffin blocks, laid the template over the wax, and traced the design by rubbing and carving it into the wax with a sharp skewer. Then I removed the paper, and continued to carve into the etched wax and add detail.
I had never done this before, so I wasn't sure how deep to carve into the wax to get the silicone to best fill and set, but I did try and do a somewhat uniform depth. Once the design was clearly visible and etched into the wax, my favorite tool to use for carving the wax was a nut (or seafood) pick. The tip was just sharp enough to trace and dig into the thin groove made by the skewer, and the curve of the instrument was very useful in scooping out the wax. (Hint: Do the carving outside, or you will end up with wax shavings all over the place.) I also used a stiff paint brush to coax the excess wax out of the grooves.

The weather definitely affects the wax and therefore the carving. When I started the smaller molds, the weather was colder, and the wax was more likely to crack when carving into a tight curve or corner.

When I was working on my super awesome super secret brilliant idea project, the temperature had climbed into the nineties and it was significantly easier to carve into the (softer) wax without it cracking. It was also significantly easier to claim that my brain was cooked by the heat and that is what made me forget that my morning's worth of carving was left out in the sun and melted all over the place.

Sigh.

My super awesome super secret brilliant idea project was to try and make a stamp of my daughter's face. Could such a thing be done? Turns out, you can order a custom rubber stamp made from your photo for a mere $59 (starting price for a business-card sized stamp).So, yes, it has been done. But could it be done by an inexperienced and easily frustrated non-crafter?

Well....

I started with a photo of Beanie's face:

I cropped that photo in photoshop and ran a 'stamp' filter on it. (FYI, I knew exactly nothing about photoshop a month ago, but have been able to find simple tutorials describing anything I have wanted to do with a photo so far.)

And used that as my template for carving:

(Do try not to leave your first attempt in the sun to melt.)

When I carved my second attempt at the face stamp, it was still so incredibly warm (98 degrees) that, although the wax carved like butter, the loose shavings would not shake or brush out of the mold until I refrigerated it for a while. I also had to be careful about holding the wax block, as the edges began to melt in my hand.

When I was finally satisfied with the design I had carved, and had removed all of the loose wax that I could, I was ready to fill it in with the silicone caulk. I wasn't sure how viscous the caulk was, so I sort of 'pushed' it into the grooves as I squeezed the 'goo' out of the very handy and ergonomic container.

I used the clear silicone caulk for the first designs, and one single packet was enough for those four, covering two paraffin rectangle blocks. After filling in the design, I smoothed over it with a plastic putty knife.

(The author would like you to know that she did not slice her fingertip off with this plastic putty knife; nor is the bandaged finger seen in the photograph connected with the making of this project or the use of GE Caulk Singles in any way.)

Because I apparently don't read things quite carefully enough (and in my defense, because those two packages looked very much alike), I ended up with the white silicone caulk for the face stamp.

I only realized this after I tore off the top and instantly found myself with a craving for some delicious, gooey, sticky, marshmallowy, fluffy white frosting. (Mmmmm...)

I did manage to resist eating the creamy (nom-nom) white caulk and squeeze it into the appropriate molds. I had enough to do the engraving of Beanie's face, and did another impression of my favorite 'Hawaiian wave' carving.

The first (clear) silicone stamps had dried (about 36 hours after making them) and had I peeled them out to let the design dry a bit more by the time I attempted the face mold with the white caulk. I noticed that the clear silicone on the drying stamps had bubbled in just a few places, but it also looked like I had not managed to fill in a few of the grooves. A friend suggested giving the next round a nice patting down, so when the white silicone had just begun to set (and was no longer tacky), I pushed gently with my fingertip to coax it into the design.

So this sure was fun, but how do the stamps work?
Or, I should say, with my initial disclaimer of being a novice, bumbling NON-crafter...
Do they work?

Well, yes...but these, as a first attempt, could most certainly be improved.

To use the stamp, I trimmed around the design, then temporarily mounted it onto a 1/4 inch-thick piece of acrylic (99 cent scrap at OSH) with a glue stick. I prefer this method to permanently mounting it onto a block; I don't have much storage space, and the acrylic can be used over and over, as the thin silicone stamps are swapped out as necessary. If I was going to store a lot of stamps, I would use a binder and stick the stamps onto plastic sheet protectors. This would hold a large amount of stamps, but I would still only need to store a few acrylic mounting blocks of assorted sizes.

The first round of stamps came out a bit spotty. There were parts of the mold that did not fill enough with silicone, which made the impression uneven and spotty. I noticed that the thicker the groove, the more solid the silicone, so I would definitely try and work with thicker lines to accommodate the viscosity of the caulk.

That said, I was inanely excited with the results of having made something fun and rather useful, and immediately started thinking of all the things I would want to have on a stamp.

But first I want to perfect the method, so I am carving over some of my original designs, etching the design in a bit deeper, and then will re-cast them with more silicone. That stuff is pretty delicious looking easy to work with, and after making more stamps, I just may try some around the bathroom sink.

The face stamp turned out pretty well, but the texture of the white silicone is definitely sub-standard to the clear silicone for this specific project. The white, even when fully dry, is softer and more flexible than the clear, which makes it too 'mushy' for a stamp. I am carving into my design a bit deeper and re-casting with clear silicone.

The white silicone stamp.

Some stamping results.