Don't use too much dry pigment. Start off my putting a some of the UTEE in a jar and adding just a small amount of the dry pigment. Shake it vigorously so the dry pigment attaches itself to the UTEE and coats it.

The original Ranger Heat Set Inks will work with the melted UTEE. However, I had Ranger re-formulate them to take out the solvent that was always gurgling and hissing when it as put into the pot. So, the To Dye For's have a slightly different formula.

If you add other "colors" of embossing powder to the clear UTEE it will no longer be transparent which is the whole purpose of using see-thru additives, like the To Dye For. Adding other colors is a great idea for making new combinations of colors. but they will be opaque.

If you drill into an already cool UTEE shape it will shatter, unless...... someone hs brilliantly found something that won't do that....like a hot drill tip which would simply pierce thru using heat.

I generally say that you should mount a UTEE piece to give it that extra protection from handling. It is drops or is otherwise mishandles it is only resin and it will break. We like to use Wonder Tape because it has incredible strength and a very secure bond.

I got the idea for this out of Suze Weinberg's book "Melt Art Impressions". If you don't have this book, it is well worth the $13 for it.

I've had this melting pot now for almost a month. I bought it from Suze at the St Paul, MN convention last month. I let it sit in the bag and didn't do much of anything with it, truth to tell, I was a bit intimidated. I mean, all those projects in Suze's book are so beautiful and they LOOK difficult. Let me say for the record, they are NOT difficult at all.

So yesterday was a perfect day to get my new melting pot out and give it a whirl. It was cold and snowy outside, even the house was a bit chilly. So I got my wood pellet stove going, warmed up the house, put on the new Rascal Flatts "Melt" CD (how appropriate huh?) and put on some nice smelling simmering potpuri. I was now "in the mood".

I had purchased some metal cookie cutters from Ben Franklin's earlier in the week (only 59 cents each!!!) so I was all set to go. I fired up the melting pot and put in some white UTEE. While that was melting (which didn't take long either), I laid out my non-stick craft sheet (also purchased from Suze) and got my cookie cutters in order. Once the UTEE was melted I poured in on my craft sheet and pressed my angel cookie cutter into it. I took some grains of gold UTEE and dropped them on top of the hot UTTE inside the cookie cutter. Now it was a waiting game. I was a bit impatient, so I pulled the semi warm UTTE (with cookie cutter) off the non-stick craft sheet and placed it in the freezer (speed cool LOL). After a few minutes I took it out of the freezer and began trying to remove the excess hardened UTEE from the cookie cutter. The UTEE stuck to the cookie cutter and shattered in most unpredictable ways that I was not happy with it. So I managed to get all the UTTE off the cookie cutter and tossed it all back in the melting pot to start all over again. (that's what I LOVE....you can just remelt any "boo boos" and start all over) This time I brushed clear embossing fluid on the inside and outside edges of my cookie cutter. Once the UTEE was melted, I took a little bit of Gold UTTE and sprinkled it LIGHTLY on top of the white UTTE in the melting pot, let melt...then swirled it with a toothpick and poured it on my craft sheet. I pressed the cookie cutter into the hot UTTE and let it cool only enough so that it wasn't too hot to pick up and fully set. The cookie cutter came away easily and cleanly. I used a pair of the small non-stick scissors (which I also bought from Suze) and just cut little sections from the outside to the line of where the cookie cutter was, then gently bent the section back and it broke off cleanly and easily from the cookie cutter shape. WOW...totally awesome swirled gold on white background Angel. Most cool!!! So, now I had the general techinque down. I remelted the excess white/gold UTTE pieces I broke off the Angel and poured again making a white/gold swirled dove. COOOOL and sooooo easy.

NOw...to chang colors of UTEE in the melting pot...would clean up be as easy as I had heard it would be??? I poured all the melted UTEE out of the melting pot onto the craft sheet. I then took a paper towel and wiped out more melted UTEE (letting it run onto the craft sheet). I then took a few more paper towels and wiped the melting pot clean...VERY easy! After the UTEE on the craft sheet hardened (takes only a few minutes), I pulled it up and put it in a baggie for future use (no waste!!). The handles on the melting pot make it very easy to grasp the pot with one hand and wipe it out with the other. I didn't get burned once.

Next, I melted clear UTEE and dropped in drops of Green Heat Set Inks (which I think are the same thing as the "to die for inks"). I swirled and mixed the UTEE and ink with a toothpick and it blended in perfectly. Repeated the cookie cutter procedure with a Christmas tree cookie cutter...totally wowser!!! So I made a few trees, cleaned the pot and started over again. Using the inks with the Clear UTEE gives a beautiful transparent stained glass look !!

Next, I melted Clear UTTE in the pot. Once melted, I sprinkled a liberal portion of Bronze UTTE and let it melt. Once it was melted, I used a toothpick to swirl and mix..then I poured it on the craft sheet and used gingerbread woman and man cookie cutters. That was GORGEOUS !!! The bronze swirled randomly thru the mixture making it look totally awesome. I cleaned the pot and started over again.

Next I melted Clear UTTE in the pot. Once that was melted, I sprinkled some Gold UTEE on top, let it melt then swirled it around with a toothpick. Poured it out on my craft sheet and used the Angel ornament. COOOOOL I remelted the excess gold UTTE pieces, then sprinkled in some Pearl UTEE and let it melt. Then I swirled that with a toothpick and poured out on the craft sheet and made a gingerbread man ornament. WAY COOOOOOL. OK, I remelted those excess pieces and and dropped in a few of the extra bronze pieces from above, let melt, swirled with toothpick...poured out and made a gingerbread woman ornament...WOWOWOOWWO !!!! I love that pearl UTEE..so awesome. Cleaned my melting pot, saved the excess UTEE ina baggie and started all over again.

This time I melted Clear UTEE. Once melted, I dropped in 4 drops of the Hot Pink Heat Set inks, stirred with toothpick. The I poured Pearl UTEE on top, let melt and swirled with a toothpick. Ohhhh beautiful!!! Poured it on my craft sheet and made some ornaments. AWESSSOME !!!

A few things I learned were:

1. Brush clear embossing fluid on inside and outside edges of cookie cutter so UTEE releases easily. You only have to do this once and can reuse the cookie cutter several times without putting more embossing fluid on it.

2. Don't let the UTEE cool very much before you remove the cookie cutter and trim excess UTEE away. You only want it cool enough so the UTEE is set and you can handle it without burning your fingers.

3. The Clear UTEE is a great base for mixing all your colors. 4. If your cookie cutter ornament has little "ridges" on the edge after breaking away the excess UTEE, use an exacto knife to gently shave away those ridges.

4. To get a hole in your ornament, heat up a tapestry needle and simply push it thru the UTEE ornament. It works beautifully.

5. You can use the Liquid Pearls, Pure Glitz and Ice Stickles to add some lovely embellishments to these ornaments.

I also tried dipping a stamp into the melted UTEE in the pot (using clear embossing ink as my release agent on the stamp), and was happy with the results of that. I also took a large unmounted background stamp, coated it with clear embossing ink for a release agent and poured melted UTEE straight from the pot on top of the stamp. This also worked beautifully, it didn't damage my stamp and pulled off easily. I didn't keep either of the two above samples, as I was just seeing if/how it would work. For future reference it works GREAT !!!

Can you pour the liquid UTEE inside of the ornament rather than pouring it onto the craft sheet and pressing the ornament into it?

2. if you put metal cookies cutters on a sheet of teflon stuff (i think suze sells this too) you can pour the melted utee in it with the ladle thing - and make a shape of utee

3. if you work really fast you can throw some more stuff in there too and make layers -

Keep a window open for ventilation. Some embossing powders break down differently when heated over a period of time. I had one ugly color of EP that I knew I'd never use as is, so I threw it into the pot. First, it stunk to high heaven. Second, it didn't get all nice and smooth like UTEE. It was more the consistency of Marshmallow Fluff. Ugh.

Be careful what you dip into the UTEE. I had a paperclay charm that I had painted with Lumiere paint but didn't really like. So I figured I'd dip it into the pit and cover it with UTEE. Not good. The chemical reaction between the paint and the UTEE caused lots of bubbling and bad smells. It even softened the paperclay a bit. Because this was the first time I played with my pot, I didn't want to waste a lot of EP on my learning mistakes. So I didn't fill it as full as I could have...or probably should have. I used most of the UTEE while playing and by the time I was done, I had a thin coating of UTEE left on the bottom of the pot. I turned the pot off and let it cool, then peeled the UTEE off the bottom. The colors were gorgeous and I couldn't fathom not using this cooled UTEE. So I got to thinking...

I cut the UTEE circle in strips of different widths and lengths. Then I grabbed a piece of black cardstock that had a bunch of mess on it from Pearl Ex expirements. I dabbed a bit of clear embossing ink on the back of each UTEE strip and then created a mosaic pattern, laying the strips about 1/8 to ¼ inch apart, on my paper by placing the strips inked-side down.

Interference Violet + Black UTEE gives you an amazing, intense duo violet
Blue Green + clear = turquoise
Duo Blue Green + black = teal

Back to techniques. The original technique we demoed with these was to simply (using tweezers..this stuff is hot) dunk the stamping shape, or whatever it is you want to coat, in the hot pot and then stamp into it. Saves you the sprinkle and heat, sprinkle and melt, sprinkle and melt to build up layers. If you want, you can dip half and half into two different colors. You can dip just the edges to frame whatever is on the tile. You can dip it from the hot pot into beads or glitter.