Plaster ruins everything

When I last left off it was the last step in mold making before getting into plaster.  Plaster is notoriously messy, but easy to work with.  It's just two ingredients, water and powder, and you don't have to do anything but mix them and wait.

You always want to use cold water, since it will extend the length of time you have to work with it before it sets up.  I usually work with a 2:1 plaster to water ratio, maybe a little bit more plaster to thicken it up.  The thicker the mix is the harder the plaster will set up, which is something you want, but you can't be working with pudding or there will be too many bubbles to worry about.

So here's the inside of the box!  You can see there are gaps where the clay doesn't meet the sides perfectly.  Those all need to be filled very carefully!  You do not want leaks!

At this point I thought that everything was sealed up.  It looks sealed up, right?  Well, apparently it wasn't, because when I poured the plaster...

There is a limited number of options when this happens.  If it's a slow leak, and your plaster is setting up fast (if it's fresh and you used warmer water it will go faster) you can hope for the best.  I was not so lucky, my plaster is a bit old and I had two fast leaks.

From that standpoint I had two options.  One, just let it go, come back later when it's all set up, and take it all apart and start all over with the mold making process.  Or two, try to plug up the holes where you see them with clay and either mix more plaster to pour in or try to scoop up what leaked out and pour it back in.  I did the latter, and it worked out?  This was just a silly little mold for fun, so I wasn't too concerned about it having problems.

I managed to get enough plaster back into there that it was thick enough, sure was a mess though.

My poor shoes, they were not so lucky :(