Hot Glue - How Fun!

Saw a youtube accidentally on Mod Podge Mini Melts and it looked great, but the greatest part came when I saw they sell finger covers made of silicon! As most of you know, last summer (or was it a year ago?), I had a major accident with my glue gun and burned myself rather badly. I hated having that gun defeat me. I watched a lot of videos before I went to Amazon and the place I bought from is "Stuff4" who was nice enough to combine my shipping costs since I bought a mold, the gluesticks and the finger protectors separately.
On youtube I saw a gal coloring hot glue with crayons - well, you have to have a mold that you are pressing the glue into but it does work - even I did it first time. Not the best but certainly useable. The molds that Mod Podge makes are the first like that I have ever bought or used. They are great and very detailed. Then I watched a video that showed a gal making stencils and stamps with hot glue. I was amazed that I could do this and also found one making those little dots we are all using on our scrapbook pages and cards. So here is my take, I am practicing using glue sticks as they are cheaper by a lot. Perfect pearls makes a wonderful glimmer and shine on anything I make. Your finger and a tad of water assures you get it smooth and lovely. Having purchased all the colors available when I first started in 2010, I have plenty of product and colors to play with. (After organizing all my stuff, I am done "hoarding" and want to use it!) So here is my results from my first play with both the mini melts and hot glue. These are all made from mini melts white.

The blue is Tim Holtz paint. For some reason, they stay wet a pretty long time. The other color you see is Twinkling H2O done with a tiny paint brush. I loved the look. I trimmed these with a craft knife on a cutting board. This was my first attempt at anything. The blue one has a bit of regular glue in it as there was some left in the gun.

These were my next try. All made out of glue sticks. I am not quick and tried these drops over glitter as opposed to sprinkling glitter over the hot glue. Not good. But the drops came out pretty good. I think I may buy some colored glue sticks next time I get out. I used a gray crayon on the gray ones and a  pink crayon on the pink ones. They cooled very matte and I didn't care for it, so I used Perfect Pearl pearl color over them. Dipped my finger in a tad of water and then pearls and "painted". I also tried lightly spraying the glue, but that is too much water. These are the first gray embellishments I own. These are very small and I put them in baggies and away.

These four are the results of trying to make stencils/stamps with the glue. They are colored from the spray inks and regular inks I tried them with. I sprayed through them onto an art journal that I had prepped with gesso. It worked just like any stencil worked with the exception that these are very easy to lift off. Then I tried them as stamps (tried both sides) the back, flat side is the only side that works well enough. Believe it or not, they clung to the Tim Holtz blocks good enough to stamp an image. It wasn't an image that I liked well enough for all the time it took to make these. I won't be stamping again, I don't think. I would rather use my real stamps or my multi media junk to stamp with. They did show stamping with acrylic paint and I only tried ink. Maybe next time I will try paint. So while I was all messy, I decided to use my glue creations one last time and here is the double journal page I made. I used some pink glitter and tried different ways to get it to stick after having put it on the page - I know backwards, and what was I thinking? Ended up with Mod Podge matte on my fingers pressing it over the glue. It worked to some degree. Then I put matte iridescent on with a brush and sprinkled more pink glitter. It worked much better. Of course!

The black is acrylic paint and the pink lace has distress ink on it. It is not really white in those spots, just very shiny. I think its so pretty in real life that this photo isn't the best. Hope you enjoy this and I know I am going to be playing with the glue until I get it right. The mini melts was much easier to use and less trimming than the glue. I also found that my little scissors works better to trim than the craft knife. I like the heart the best and will be making that again. Hugs to you all, Barb F