It’s time for the reveal of the coasters I made this week with the sand layer before the water. Spoiler alert, I like the water layer first final product a lot better.
Here are my reasons. First, the water layer doesn’t distribute as well this way. I think pouring the pigmented resin on top of wet clear resin really makes it move more and look more like water. Even though I used a craft stick to make swirls in the water, they don’t look that different from the control coaster at the top left of the first photo, which I just poured and didn’t stir. (Does it sound like I’m talking about Martinis now?) Second, the sand comes up around the shells and other decorative items on the beach and makes it look like they are all suffocating.
They’re still OK overall, but I think I will go back to my usual layering order. I do like the white pigment at the edge of the water / sand, but it will take some time for me to perfect my technique for placing it. However, I did an informal FB Friends poll and folks are really pretty much evenly split on whether they prefer bubbles or no bubbles. I guess I will have to keep making some of each!