Monday, May 26, 2014

Pink Panda Review: Floree clay molds & Padico Mermaid Puffy lightweight air dry clay (Chocolate color)

Hi again~
Feel like extra productive this weekend! Today I want to talk about 2 molds and a pack of clay that I've got for awhile now.... lol Finally I have time to talk about them~!

Padico Mermaid Puffy lightweight air dry clay: First thing I want to review is, the Padico Mermaid Puffy lightweight air dry clay. 



This clay has 3 different colors ----> White, biscuit and chocolate

I got this on Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ELVEINTIDOS?ref=l2-shopheader-name) and I picked the chocolate color. However, this seller is not selling any more craft supplies. If you'd like to get it you can always contact the seller and see if she can help you out :) She's from Japan and I found her listing prices are comparatively bargain (With both her listing price and shipping cost) I got mine for USD$3.48 a pack, shipping cost was USD$3.30. I think it's a pretty good price and she shipped fast too~ I was really happy with my purchased.

This lightweight air dry clay is from the same company (Padico)of Hearty air dry clay that I reviewed before (http://pinkpandacraftshop.blogspot.com/2013/04/japanese-resin-air-dry-clay-review.html)
It is 50g a pack. Package says this clay is waterproof, elastic, lightweight with velvety texture. It is made in Japan.


My thoughts:
The texture of this Mermaid Puffy clay is very similar to Hearty. The only thing is it's a little bit stickier. Very elastic, with a little bit of smell too. It's nothing bothering though. I guess it's from the color that added in it because it smells kind of like acrylic paint.


When I first opened it, it gave me an impression of chocolate mousse. It's a little wet. Hearty is more like marshmallow. It's very soft and easy to knead. The stickiness would gradually decrease the longer you knead it. So if you want to use it with molds you might want to knead it for a while first and let the stickiness fade out a little. It'd be easier to take the clay out of the mold this way.

This Mermaid Puffy lightweight air dry clay is great for making ice cream scoops too, I personally think. It's easy to stretch the ice cream texture out and sculpt the edge with it. On the other hand, polymer clay needs more effort to create such effect. Another great thing to make ice cream scoops with this lightweight clay is, it's not as heavy as some other clays for making jewelry pieces (Like rings, earrings or necklace charms etc.) It feels better to wear it on comparing to polymer clay or resin air dry clay.

Let's see how Mermaid Puffy does with molds:


This works great with smaller molds. In the picture above I didn't grease any of the molds. I kneaded the clay for awhile to take away the stickiness, so it came out pretty easy. The details showed up really nicely too and I'm really happy about it. Just make sure not to over knead it though, if not there'll be little dry cracks appear on the clay surface.


Then when it came to larger shape molds, I had a hard time to take the clay out. I tried to knead it but it didn't help. It's because the kneading only takes away the stickiness from the surface. So when the clay got pressed down into the mold, the sticky clay from the inside would touch the mold surface instead. And this is a larger shape too, it had a bigger surface to contact with the sticky clay. That's why the clay was stuck inside the mold. When I tried to pull it out, it would just mess up the shape of it....

Using Mermaid Puffy clay with bigger molds would be better to grease the molds first, such as using olive oil or baby oil. Flour or baby powder would help too but it'll also leave the powder on it. It's a little difficult to get it off comparing to oil.


One pack of Mermaid Puffy clay can make about this much of miniatures~


50g a bag is kind of small. So I guess it's good that it works better with smaller molds~ We can get more creations out of it :)

To conclude, I like this lightweight Mermaid Puffy clay. The texture is great, light and fluffy. I was making all these this afternoon and the tiny ones are already dried. The bigger ones will probably take a couple days to be completely dried. When it's dried, the color gets deeper and more vibrant. As far as I can see the drying ones I have here, they haven't shrunk too much. About 10% of the original size.
Also I find that when the clay is dried, it feels a little more "puffier" than Hearty clay. When i squeeze it, it feels like soft foam. So I guess why they have it names Mermaid Puffy~

The price of it would probably be the thing stop my from buying it again. Even though I found a bargain price from a great seller, it still considers as a little on the pricy side comparing to the Hearty air dry clay (The white color). They perform pretty much the same. So if I need a chocolate color I'd get the Hearty white lightweight clay (200g pack) and mix the color my own. Because I can get more products out of it. But if you want a really vibrant color, it'd be better to get the colored ones. It's because if you mix too much acrylic paint into the white clay, it'll make it too wet and sticky. So it depends on what you need for your creations~

Floree molds:
Next I want to talk about the Floree molds I have~ http://www.floree.jp/
I wanted to try this Floree brand a long time ago, pretty much since I started to make clay crafts. I was so into researching all things about clay miniatures (I still am~) I like it because they have molds that provide different sizes on 1 same shape. (As you can see below)

You can find different Floree molds on Etsy. Other than molds for clay, they have molds for resin too~ The ones for resin is made out of silicone. It's flexible and bendable. I haven't tried that yet, but I'll be happy to :)

My thoughts:
Here I have one in cookie shapes and one in Madeleine shapes. They have different sizes in 1 mold so it's very flexible to adjust the sizes you need.
I got this for about USD$13-14 a piece. It costs a little bit more comparing to the other clay molds in the market. It's in really good quality though. These black ones are in hard plastic, it's very durable.



Picture below you can see the actual sizes of the molds. They are small, like eraser size. (It's a toothpick under them lol)


Each of the mold has there own product number. The Madeleine one is G-077, and they have their company website embossed on it too~


Below you can see the results of using it with the Mermaid Puffy lightweight air dry clay. Shapes and lines came out very clearly. It's quite easy to take the clay out too even without greasing it.


The largest size of the Madeleine is kind of thick, but I could still take the clay out effortlessly.

The other one is a cookie shapes mold. The product number of it is G-029. This one has a lot of different sizes on it! 11 in total! It's also a black hard plastic mold for clay.



Below you can see all the results of the different sizes of the cookies. Some of them have different scallop edges~ I didn't grease this one as well. All the cookies came right out very easily.
This mold is also nicely made. All the details showed up very good. You can clearly see the scallop edges and the dots on them. (Even with the tiniest one!)


Hope this angle can give you a closer view to see them~


I really love these molds. Although it's on the pricier side, you get what you pay for. All the details are well made and it's very durable. I also like the small size of it too, saving some room for storage. (If you're into crafts, you know what I mean~) Floree gives a wide range of variety of different molds, you can probably find what you're looking for!
I'm really happy with the Floree molds and I would definitely recommend all clay lovers to try it out!

Over all I loved what I've got in this post~ They're all quite easy to get on the internet. Do some research and comparing all the costs, you might be able to find some better deals than I have here~ lol
Hope you all like the reviews I have this time! I'll come back for more until I have new goodies coming~

Have a great day everyone!
Ki

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Saturday, May 24, 2014

Love fairy tales~

Hello!
Hope everyone is having a great weekend so far~

I love fairy tales, what about you? The ones that I read the most when I was little were from the Brothers Grimm. I remember when we were in primary school we have to read the books and write reports about them. I enjoyed doing so~

I've been trying to play with the new things I got in Hong Kong. Here are couple more things that I came up with:

I figured I haven't made phone cases for awhile. So I started to play with the pastel iPhone 5 / 5s cases that I got. Cream color always makes me think of lace, that's why I chose to put some lace on this cream case. It's girly and great for spring time! I feel like this would go well with brides too ;) 


I really like this white flower goes with these big rhinestones~ I like blings but sometimes things get too many rhinestones on it make it kind of too busy. I've tried to not over done it on this one and it looks a little bit more elegant~


I really liked the laces go onto these pastel phone cases, so I made another one again~ This time I took out my Bambi here. (love it!) I really wanted to do something with her and I thought she would go well with the laces, so here it is~ Love this fairy tale theme on the case so much! 


I enjoyed making this a lot~ Especially in spring and summer time having an item like this around would make me feel so lively! Where I live has been chilly and cold most of the time.... so looking at this bambi fairy tale case helps me get the feeling of the warm weather a little better lol


Then I really got into this fairy tale theme and I wanted to make some more! This floral mirror is also another find I got in Hong Kong. I like this mirror a lot but too bad I only got 2 of them.... (Was originally 3 in total but 1 broke in the mail....) It'd be nice to have it on phone cases or business card cases. Cause this can make the cases serve with 2 different purposes (Saves some room in your handbag~)


I also love the glitter background it has too! It has different color reflects and it looks like scales you see on a mermaid~


What do you think about these so far~? I wonder if I should make some more of this fairy tale theme items. I've been really enjoying seeing them around! Please let me know what you think~

Hope you all are having a great Memorial Day weekend!
Ki

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Sunday, May 18, 2014

Do you like bows~? Cute hair bows giveaway!

Hi all!
Hope you all had a great weekend~
The last post I've mentioned I got some new craft supplies when I was in Hong Kong. I decided to start playing with some new ribbons / fabrics since I've been wanting to do this for a while now~
I began to love hair accessories when I started to have longer hair couple years ago. (I used to have shorter hair most of my life lol) I made some hair ties for myself with felt and I loved it a lot! Since then I made some more here and there and I really enjoyed it :)
I took a trip to Seoul in 2010 with my friend. I bought a lot of handmade hair accessories there. They were so pretty and I kept wondering where to get materials like those to make some for my own. Finally I found some and here are some of the bows I made this weekend~


This is the first one I made and I really like it!

Tried to start with simple style~ Nothing fancy but would be great to go with a lot of different hair styles and outfits :) Specially for spring & summer time!

Trying to put some details on it, what do you think~?

I like this navy blue ribbon with gold color polka dots on it a lot! This hairband goes really good with casual outfits~ Even if you have shorter hair it'd still look cute!

I love this pom pom like hair tie~ It looks red in this picture, but the color is more like this ---->           Very cute for ponytail or a hair bun~

This is a girly pink flower hair tie. In my mind I think this would be great for some bridal / wedding events~

Then I tried to make some with a little bit more details on it~ This is a clip. Great for longer hair since this bow is fairly big.

I love how this butterfly bow turned out. A little plain but yet it's still elegant~ Would be great for just a simple ponytail :)

This is a thicker kind of material and it's kind of feeling like felt. Not exactly though. I figured it'd go better with fall / winter outfits, but I really want to try making a bow with it lol This is what I came out with~ Feel like I could do a better job, I'll keep trying :p

Ok Ok let's get to the giveaway now! Since it's Spring / Summer time now, I chose these 2 bows below as our giveaway gifts:


I think the pastel color would go well with a lot of light outfits in Spring and Summer time. And I also think these 2 will fit a lot of different girls / ladies out there too~ Hopefully our lucky winner will love them :)

Here's a simply entry for the giveaway below: (This giveaway is opened to worldwide)
All you have to do ---- Like our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter and leave a comment to this post below~




a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck to you all~ I'll be back to announce the winner on here and our Facebook page on May 30th. Talk to you all later!
Have a great week!
Ki


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Monday, May 12, 2014

Craft supplies, happy time in Hong Kong!

Hello cuties!
Long time.... Long time! Time just flies too fast....
I did have a great spring time~ After 2 years I could finally go home and got to see my family! I had spent 2 months in Hong Kong and I didn't really want to leave. I'm glad I got to see people I wanted to see, foods I wanted to eat, places I wanted to go and stuff I wanted to buy lol

I got some great craft supplies and I'd love to share them to you all! (Especially the craft books I got!) Prices did raised a lot in these 2 years in Hong Kong, and China too! (Because I love to order from TaoBao.com lol) But these places really have a lot of pretty things I just couldn't resist!

These are the craft books that I got:


This is one of the craft books I love the most! I first found out this crafter was on her blog ( http://ameblo.jp/candycolorticket/ ) I was totally attracted to all these colorful clay sweet deco! This book is in Japanese though.... They have a lot of detailed step by step pictures in there so hopefully I can figure some out~


This is the first Japanese clay blogger I found on the internet and I was truly amazed of her creations! Her works made me fell in love with sweet clay deco. Her tutorials on her blog has taught me a lot~ ( http://masumirai.moo.jp/ ) A lot of her craft supplies are from the Japanese 100 yen store, it's kind of like the $1 store in America.
This book is in Chinese so I can read it lol She has 2 books but I could only find the second one when I was in Hong Kong. This book mainly introduces to use the lightweight air dry clay, this is because the 100 yen stores mainly carry this kind of clay. All the tutorials in it are very detailed and clear. Pictures are nicely taken and it provides a lot of different techniques~ I can't wait to try some of it soon!



This is another Chinese version of clay book I got~ This book contains a lot of neat ideas. It also has some doll house miniature decoration tutorials, which I've been wanting to try. This would be a great start for me~ They also have a web site too. (http://www.crk-design.com/crk-contents.html )


This is a sweet deco craft book but it's not about clay. This one is~~~~ *drum roll* FELT! When I first took it out from the shelf I thought it was a clay craft book that I was looking for. I read it and couldn't believe they were made out of felt!  Everything in this book looks so perfect~ The crafter who made this is really incredible. Using scissors to cut paper in curve line is already hard enough. Cutting felt with scissors and making the curve lines this perfect is not an easy job!
Another great thing about this book is, it has all the templates printed in there. I can just photo copy it, cut it out and follow the instructions. So I don't have to worry about proportions~ I also love the pencil color drawing instructions in this book. Very pretty, very artistic!


Here's one about resin. Love this one so much! Everything in there is super pretty and cute! Too bad it's in Japanese.... It'd be nice if I can understand it. This book doesn't have too many tutorials in it. It has a lot of pretty pictures though~ They give you all the material informations they've used in it, but it doesn't tell you too much of how to make it.
Looking at all these beautiful pictures can still give you a lot of kawaii ideas~


Okay, one last book I got~ This one is about making jewelry. I like the mix and match materials ideas of this book. The products come out very nice and pretty! It has traditional wire and crystal beads jewelry, and also has jewelry designs mixed with resin accessories and laces. Some are girly and some are very elegant. After all they're all cute!


Besides craft books, I got some craft supplies too~ In Hong Kong, one place I like to go get different supplies is called Sham Shui Po. In this area, there're a lot of garment and craft supply wholesale shops. They also do retails too~ That's why I like to go there since everything is kind of concentrated in one place and they have a lot of different varieties.
There's also a mall there that has a lot of little shops sell kawaii clothing and accessories. Several craft shops are in this mall too. I like to get my felt wool supply from this shop there ( http://www.handcrafter.com.hk/ ) The sellers are very helpful every time I go. They'd answer all the questions you have! The shop itself is very neat and clean. Every package of felt wool in the shop looks like a bunch of colorful cotton candy! It just makes me so happy every time I go in~ Other than felt wool, they also sell a lot of felt craft accessories too such as tools, eyes and nose for making cute animals etc. They have all kinds of felt craft books too! In Chinese and Japanese~ You can definitely find something you look for if you like this!

I got these 2 packs this time~


Another place I like to shop for craft supply in Hong Kong is CitySuper / Log-On. This is a corporate chain store so you can find this in different areas in Hong Kong~ ( http://www.citysuper.com.hk/module4_main.php?sdiv=log ) They have a lot of interesting things imported from different countries. Stationary, art & crafts, toy, home deco, kitchen utensil, bathroom essential etc. You name it they have it~
When I was there, it was by Valentine's Day so they have a booth out with all kinds of tools and chocolate for girls to make Valentine's Day gifts for their love ones! Even though I was away from my hubby this year and couldn't make him any chocolate, I still couldn't resist to go check it out!

So.... I got these~


 


These are all chocolate molds~ Super cute! They would be great for making clay and resin products :) The first one is a plastic mold and the other 3 are silicone~

I have 2 more molds here I forget where I got it from in Hong Kong lol I love this city so much because there're so many places to shop! I don't even remember where I went~ lol



One other thing I love to do when I go home is, shopping at TaoBao.com!
This is like Ebay in Chinese version. They have all kinds of stuff up there~ Now they do have a global page and ship worldwide, so I can order things from where I live too~
Well, Since I was in Hong Kong, I just bought a lot of things there so I can save some additional fees and shipping costs :p

I got some accessories that can go with my clay crafts~








I figured I haven't made phone cases for awhile, so I got some pretty pastel colors phone cases for iPhone 5/5s and Samsung Galaxy S4



I got a bunch of beautiful laces too! These would be great for making some jewelry pieces and hair accessories~






Here're some cute ribbons and accessories that I'd like to make some bows with!






And some cute crochet flowers~

Last but not least, I bought some cute fabrics and buttons wishing to do some sewing projects too!

These fabrics are too cute and I want to make some pouches for myself!

Bunny and Kitty wooden buttons, how could I resist?!

These are most of the things I've got from this trip back home~ I had so much fun to stay there for 2 months! The most important thing was, I got to see my family that I didn't see for 2 years! It was the longest time I've been away from home and it was TOUGH, man!
I got to eat all the food that I missed so badly too~ Hong Kong is not only a place to shop, but also to eat great foods as well! I can probably make another post to talk about it lol

Anyway hope you all enjoy this sharing I have this time :) I'll post as often as I can and hopefully I can get a tutorial up here soon!

P.S. Here's a custom order I finished last week~



Have a great week!
Ki

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