Stamping on Friendly Plastic Techniques

[Deb Lovett]

Here are a couple fun and easy techniques using Friendly Plastic, but first let me show you some Friendly Plastic. It has been around for a long time, and people use it to make very unique jewelry. The first strip is showing you the back (in this case it is black plastic, but some strips are white). The front is a metallic color coating. Both sides are usable.

[Deb Lovett]

Stamping ON Friendly Plastic Technique

-Use regular scissors to cut Friendly Plastic to size desired.
-Place on a piece of cardboard wrapped in foil. (This becomes your heat protected surface to work on.)
-Use Alcohol Inks and blending solution and pounce ink on the Friendly Plastic as desired. (Leave some uninked space. You can use the front or the back of the strips.)
-Ink stamp and stamp on prepared Friendly Plastic (I used purple* StazOn, but any ink should work).
-Heat with heat tool just long enough to set ink and soften edges.
-Let cool.
-Remove from foil (heating may cause the plastic to stick to the heat protected surface, but it will pop off when cool) and use as desired.

*White ink would have shown up better. Next time....

[Deb Lovett]

Stamping INTO Friendly Plastic Technique

-Cut a piece of Friendly Plastic to desired size.
-Place on a piece of cardboard wrapped in foil. (This becomes your heat protected surface to work on. It will keep your project relatively flat while you heat it.)
-Optional: Prepare Friendly Plastic by adding alcohol inks as instructed above.
-Soften Friendly Plastic using the heat tool. This doesn't take long! The surface will look glossy. Do NOT touch (it is very hot and will stick to your finger!)
-Press stamp into softened Friendly Plastic. Inking your stamp is not necessary, but you may ink it if desired. (I used purple StazOn in my example.)
-Leave stamp in the Friendly Plastic and place the cardboard with the stamped image in the refrigerator for 10 minutes or until the Friendly Plastic cools and hardens.
-When cool, pull Friendly Plastic off the stamp.

This is the stamp I used from OnyxXpressions:
http://www.onyxxpressions.com/catalo....htm#begincart

[Deb Lovett]

Please feel free to share your Friendly Plastic art here. RSC is a great place to learn from each other!

[j3annin3]

i loved playing with Friendly Plastic, i think i have a baggie of bits somewhere. thanks for the tutorial Deb Lovett and for sparking the good memories.

[Deb Lovett]

J3annin3, did you make jewelry or did you use Friendly Plastic with your stamps? Any tips you'd like to share about working with Friendly Plastic?

[j3annin3]

i started out making jewelry thingees, using melting, fusing, and swirlings in the melted goo, but my happiest Friendly Plastic moments came after i had seen a program about glass slumping. FP will melt to the general shape of the surface of whatever is under it. I decided to try and see what i could get the FP to slump over. I had a plaster doll face that i had made from a mold of a thrift store 'Barbie' and used the FP to slump a sort of muzzy face for a new doll, an art doll about the moon. i liked the way the resulting face had a metallic/iridescent sheen, and the lack of sharp features worked for that concept too.

I've never tired stamping on it either before or after heating. I'm looking forward to seeing what can be done. I'm thinking i'll try making rolled tube beads first.....assuming i can find my stash and time to goof with it. I do think working with a heat tool as opposed to an electic skillet or oven will be very much an improvement for a lot of techniques, i thinking it might be much easier to keep the FP at the just right temp. I had a few troubles when i first started playing with it because i didn't have a good feel for how hot to make and keep it. But it's easy to work with, not terribly expensive, and the marvelous finishes are just fun.

What did/do you like about Friendly Plastic?

[Deb Lovett]

Friendly Plastic beads will be neat! Be sure to show us when you make them.

What do I like about FB? Well, the dimension, the combination of metallic with alcohol inks. Next time I would pick up some jewelry pendant shapes or even bottle caps and form it into those holders -- that would be neat. Maybe I can reheat what I've already done and try to put them in frames???

hi all,

i have a whole week of free Friendly Plastic tutorials on my blog...including stamping into the FP...feel free to check them out here :0)
and of course...do let me know what you think!

enjoy,
alix

[Deb Lovett]

These are fantastic, Alix. You have some great ideas and beautiful work.