Donna, The best release for glass or metal is to line the bowl with plastic dry cleaner bags. BUT then you get wrinkles on the surface of your shrooms from the plastic. Plasticware doesn't have to be pliable, helps sometimes for newbies just that it's easier. I use a lot of different ridgid plasticware for molds. I think that someone here was using a plastic lid for a shroom mold from a salad that they had for lunch from one of the major fast food places. Even with the plastic molds you have to spray on a release like PAM baking spray or line with plastic bag. Hope this helps. Billie

you could put your bowl down... cover with some sand to get the shape you want (since some bowls have flat bottoms that would help "round" out the top the sand also helps with bowls that have lips or edges just cover them up with sand too. that way your tufa won't get stuck in the lip or edge of your bowl. Put plastic over the sand and this way the wrinkles don't matter because you won't be seeing them they will be on the underside of your mushrooms... This will make the top bigger so you might want to use a smaller bowl since you will be working on the outside of the bowl instead of the inside. Carol I did some using a pie pan and built up with sand ... I also used a different mix... But I think this would work for tufa, too.

If you want to search the s glass/mosaics forum, there are several posts with pics showing how some of them made their mushrooms.

how do you guys make the mushroom "stumps"??

If you get to it at the right time you can carve setting concrete with just about any tool.

You can use a big pile of damp sand and sitck a wooden dowel in it and then push it around to create an inverted cone. That could make a mold.

Put a spike (laaaarge nail) in the top of the stump as it sticks out of the mould. The spike will anchor the mushroom in garden soil.

Mercedes