I will agree with lowe175 it is up to you on the molds we all have different opinions on who we buy molds from depending on what you were looking for. is far is that colors are used do-it x2 I will use anything else. and as far as materials go there in our wide range of suppliers. I usually do not mix our experiment with colors the only thing I may do put a drop to try to get a transparent or add more to darken or light. there are many recipes out there you can go to any of the different websites and they have forms pertaining to this. to get pearl colors I add Perl to any color to make it Perl we do add glitter if I think it's necessary to make a particular plastic bait in the rest of it will be up to you trial and error is you go along you will pick up the more that you work with that the faster that you will learn it took me three years to learn some of the tricks be careful this hobby is very addictive you'll find out when you buy your first mold you are going to be wanting more and more.