Friday, March 20, 2015

Newest Design! PJ051 Caboshapes IV - Paisley

 Years ago when we made our first flexible, urethane mold of cabochons the names were easy, Almond cabochons, Cabochons and More, Egg Cabochons, etc but when we designed our first non-traditional smooth shapes to be used like a cabochon, we needed a name. 

Caboshape was the first name we came up with and it's stuck since then. 
The first Caboshape mold, PJ038 was extremely successful and we now have four unique Caboshape molds.

The newest caboshape design is available on our website now:


When the Paisleys were first designed, there was a curled 'tail' in many of the sculptures. After it became apparent this was not working, some of the openings were re-sculpted and were better but it became apparent that coiled tails did not translate well to patterned clay. The design shown is the third and final design and it works well.


Left is the mold with the parts identified. The measurements for each part is:

P1 -- 3” by 2” (75 x 51mm)
P2 -- 1 3/8” by 13/16” (35 x 28 mm)
P3 -- 1 5/8” by 3/4” (41 x 18 mm)
P4 -- L & R – 1” by 1 1/2” (24 x 12 mm)
P6 -- 5/8” by 5/16” (15 x 8 mm)
P7 -- 7/16” by 1/4” (11 x 6 mm) 
Border -- 1" by 1/4" (6 x 24 mm) 

The approximate, overall size of the mold is 4" wide by 3.25" tall by .675" thick.






Notice that the P3 opening has a straight tail. Because of this, you can coil the tail either right or left, loosely or tightly allowing you to make mirror image designs if desired.   This gives you, the artist, a bit more freedom. 

The instructions included with the mold are two-fold.

Making a very simple jelly roll cane, and creating these cute fun bugs from the cane and simple balls of clay. 


More intricate and fancy designs can be created using this mold. 
Below is a paisley with embedded clay designs and contrasting scalloped border added by molding four Border pieces, wrapping the paisley and tapering the ends. The bright dots are made by dipping the tip of a rounded tool, like a knitting needle or stylus into Dark Brown PearlEx powder and pressing a dot into each scallop.The tiny bit of mica powder is pressed into the dot giving a bit of gleam to the design.





Original design and sculptures by 
Penni Jo Couch

If you have this new design, we would love to see your creations!

Thanks for visiting!