New Textiles 2012

For my nonwoven project, I wanted to play with casting solid materials in silicone, so I decided to cast different candies in the form of jewelry. At first I was not sure what kind of reaction silicone would have to sugars but it turned out that the silicone cured well around the sugary delectables.

I chose to use Twizzlers, Nerds, and Dots (Gum drops) as the candies i was going to cast and wanted to make some fashionable bracelets/bangles out of them. To get the right shape I first laser cut a mold out of acrylic that was about 1/2 inch thick.  To prevent any leakages in the mold, I bonded another piece of acrylic behind it so that the mold had a back to it.

I then poured silicone into the molds so that they were filled about half way, placed the candies in, and then poured more silicone on top to make sure they were fully coated. The Twizzler bracelet was a bit more difficult because of its texture so I had to make sure that I was covering all spaces in the mold.  I had some extra silicone so I cast a Swedish Fish candy and more nerds in a small rounded dish to make a pendant that could be worn on a necklace.

I let the silicone cure for a few hours, then pulled the bracelets and pendant out of the molds. I trimmed off any excess silicone using a sharp knife.  Unfortunately I damaged the end of one bracelet while pulling it out of the mold but overall they turned out looking great.

Here are some pictures of my process and the finished product.