Modge Podge Casting

So.. during one of my wanderings around the craft stores of Indianapolis. I found a curious few objects that I must admit took my 'fancy'. So I work quite a bit with resin and casting, especially for the past couple of months. (Seriously.. I have filled my Etsy Story with these bloomin' things)

So imagine my surprise and delight when I see a pack claiming to have set cast pieces within about 30 seconds. Mind. Blown.

Now if you have any experience of resin casting, I am sure I am not alone when I say.. curing time sucks! Waiting for 24-48 hours for your pieces to cure and finish can be pretty soul destroying. Nothing like the old saying of 'watching paint dry'

Ok so minion aside.. back to the point. I was delighted to find something that could possibly help this problem. Of course I knew that it would not do the same as the resin doming and small pieces. But I figured that casting small items to make some pins or hairclips might go down well. Ok so like a mad crafting woman I gathered up an armful, snorting at the very notion of not owning a glue gun.. (OF course I do! Simpletons..) I wandered my way home all excited to try them out.

So I bought... the 'Milk Glass' white glue sticks and a couple of nice looking silicone casting molds. I sat down with them for the evening once the Moo.. (my daughter and fellow crafter ) had finally settled down to bed. I will admit the casting molds are beautiful and finely crafted. The designs are sweet and intricate, very much desireable shapes and items. Whoever had a hand in designing these however missed out on a single point. The designs unfortunately (and I do mean unfortunately..) are too small for the product they are pushing to be used in order to cast them. Now if you wanted a small and beautiful casting mold for something precious or even a pewter.. it might work wonderfully.

The glue coming out of the gun was thicker than I expected. Now I know how to use my gun and I have never had that before. I stopped all together and just let the gun rest and sit for another minute in order to check it did not have just a higher melting point. But this apparently did not help. The glue was thick and seemed clumsy in the intricate molds. The glue also trails a lot and strings out from the gun, even when you 'loop and knot' to help this as one would do with normal glue sticks. Ok.. so the glue doesn't do great. Instead I hoped for good casts, my optimistic side settling my mind that the thickness might have something to do with the better settings inside the mold.

Unfortunately not. The glue pieces are okay if you were doing a simple project with kids. At which point this product could be pretty awesome. However, if you are making something to sell or even for a nice piece of work... I would advise against the Modge Podge casts. The glue is thick, clumsy, doesn't settle in the molds well or really even seems like a good experience to use.

But as I said, it's not all doom and gloom, the molds are beautiful for materials of something finer than the glue Modge Podge is presenting. The glue does indeed dry and hold quickly, making it less mischief time for little people and their quick hands. I offered my glue gun to Moo and asked her to try them out, she managed pretty perfect casts at the first attempts and seemed pretty happy with herself for being able to. (A few were better than mine, much to my despair)

So my advice would be to think carefully when approaching the use of Modge Podge casting glues and molds. Kids will love them (apart from the heat of a glue gun - please don't give them to kids without supervision) but they are certainly not great for projects for sale or intricate 'nice' projects. Of course if you think you may get better results than us, please give them a try and let us know your thoughts! Comment below or send us some pictures!

Handmade Geek rates Modge Podge Glue Casting at: 2 stars out of 5