The super-fun monogrammed vase with plaster and a recycled bottle…

Happy Friday! With my  jewelry class coming up this weekend, I’ve been playing around with  plaster and molding techniques,which I find really creative and interesting. I  came up with this fun DIY monogrammed vase.The best part is I used my own garbage to make it! Ok,in my defense, it was a cleaned and washed recycled bottle, and a cleaned and washed milk carton.

Did you ever make those candles in grade school where you put a wick in the bottom of a milk carton and then poured in the wax and voila, you had a candle? You might have done this right after you finished a macrame owl project. This is the same kind of premise with molding in a cleaned and washed milk carton. I swear I did wash it.

It’s much easier than you think! I used a thick plastic bottle  that wouldn’t break when it was cast.That would be bad.

The big thing is to have your milk container and bottle ready to go, plaster hardens fast.

I used craft plaster from Hobby Lobby, not the industrial stuff from the hardware store.  Make sure you read all of the instructions on the side and follow all of the safety precautions. Plaster actually generates heat when it sets and can burn your skin, and it is also a respiratory irritant. I recommend doing this outside and wearing gloves, goggles and a mask because of the dust when mixing.

Now that I have completely scared you off of this project, mixed dried plaster it in a cup with water until it is the consistency of runny pancake batter. How much you need depends on your bottle size. I used a full cup.

Make sure to fill the bottle with water to the top to weigh it down or it will float up when you are casting.

Pour all of your plaster in around the bottle and let it set. Now, plaster can also expand slightly when it cures and like I said, it also creates heat, so put it somewhere stable and steady, away for children, and leave it be for a few hours.You can even leave it out overnight if it’s not going to rain and check it in the morning.

Once the plaster has cured, peel away the milk carton. If you have any edges that are a bit sharp, you can actually give them a gentle rub with a wet paper towel it will knock any edges off.

I decided to monogram mine. I will tell you I should have sealed the plaster first with  a product like mod podge or a flat varnish because it sucked up the ink and feathered  a little. It also showed smudges fast too. So make sure you seal before stamping.

I stamped a brown ink and then StazOn gold ink
Use StazOn Ink it really does stay on hard to adhere surfaces and doesn’t smudge once it’s cured. If you’re interested in carving your own stamps, you can see this post here.

Once you have it stamped, you want to let the ink cure and then seal with a flat sealer. Or you could also paint it. Plaster loves paint!

Once you get used to working with plaster, it’s a fun and easy and inexpensive project!!!

And there’s not much time left to sign up for Building a Creatively  Made E-course 2.0! It starts May 20th!

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