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My least favorite thing

Today is a prep day. I have to do a little cleanup / painting on this window frame, clean up my resin measuring cups and pour a base layer of resin in my next batch of coasters before I can do the fun, creative part.

I’m thinking about doing a mermaid in this window.

When I started using resin, I used disposable cups for measuring. That seemed wasteful, so I switched over to these silicone cups that I can clean and reuse indefinitely.

I use old gift wrap to cover my work surfaces when I work with the resin.

When I’m done pouring the resin, I just leave the stir stick in place to dry for a day or two. Once the resin cures, it is easy to just pull the stick out of the cup, bringing with it any leftover resin in the bottom.

I then cut off enough duct tape to fit two fingers in and use it to pick up the rest of the cured resin from the inside of the measuring cup. It comes right off and leaves a nice, clean, ready to use surface.

In the above photo, you can see the little drops of cured resin stuck to the sides of the silicone measuring cup. Below is how it looks when I use the duct tape to remove the drops from the cup.

I decided to pour another base layer of coasters while I was at it. Now I just have to wait for the paint to dry and the resin to cure before I can continue.

Beach coasters w/pigment sea

Interestingly, the front side of the pigment didn’t distribute the same as it did on the underside. I’m still very pleased with the final outcome, and my original concern that the “water” layer should be behind the sand is now not a concern at all. I still might try it in reverse order, but I like the way the water looks like it is washing over the sand in these. I need to work on my technique to see if I can add a white layer of bubbles at the edge of the water. I can likely do this at the last step after pouring the water by adding white pigmented resin at the edge of the water. It will take a bit of practice.

Resin coasters with shells, shark teeth, sand and resin pigments – 4″ round.
Back side of one of these coasters – note how the pigment (water layer) distributed almost as if it was brushed while the top layer retained more of the look that it had as it was applied.

Adding background

Today I added sand in another layer of resin to create the beachy background behind the shells in these coasters. I think I may need another thin layer of resin after this, maybe tomorrow if everything cures well. It also occurred to me that I should probably do the water / pigment layer last (instead of first), after the shells and sand. I’ll have to try that on the next batch.

More coasters with pigment

Today I was planning on doing some more prep work to an old window (cleaning up the wood frame / painting it) so I can use it for a mosaic. I hate doing that, so it wasn’t hard to get side tracked into making another batch of beachy coasters. My neighbor has been asking me to make some for her with the pigment as water (instead of beads / glass that I often use), so I cleared off my work surface and got creative.

Coaster using powdered pigments

For these, I poured a very thin layer of clear resin in the mold and let it sit for a while. While it was sitting, I mixed the pigments up (four different colors, three blues and one green) in separate cups. I then placed some shells and shark teeth in the resin. My sister recently sent me a bag of shark teeth (mostly found during my childhood in and around the Potomac River) to use in my projects.

I was pleasantly surprised by the way the pigment distributed itself. I didn’t get any snapshots, but I really just drizzled the pigments one at a time into the clear resin base (still tacky and not cured, but it had been sitting for probably 20 minutes). They went from squiggly / ropey designs to this! I poured some of it a bit too close to the shells, but overall I’m really happy with how the pigment looks (at least from the underside). Adding a bit more clear resin at the edge of the pigmented resin helped keep it off the shells. I will let it cure overnight before I pour the next layer and add the sand.

All poured
Covered for curing

I covered the molds with plastic lids to keep any dust out of the resin while it cures. Hopefully in a few days I will be able to pop them out of the molds and see how they look from the top, as the view in the molds is of the bottom of the coasters.

Back to windows

I set this window aside for the past several weeks while I was focusing on making memory beads. Now it’s time to get back to something fun. I found these bright glass nuggets and they just screamed, “Valentine!!” at me. For this window, I used glass nuggets, diamond dust glass chips, tiny red glass globs and some chunks of clear shiny glass.

Laying out the basic design.
Resin is poured and blown with the heat gun. I used 8 ounces of resin for this window.
Filling in the background after pouring the resin.
Putting on the finishing touches with smaller glass.

After posting this, I realized I meant to make some swirls in the background with the tiny red glass bits, but forgot. I guess there’s always next time!

Ash Memory Beads

I’ve spent the past few weeks working on the ash versions of these memory beads. This is another new material to get to know, so it has taken some experimenting.

These are from my original rondelle mold. They will be finished with a stainless steel grommet in the hole.
Before demolding the beads – ball beads on top, rondelles on the bottom.
Original rondelle without the grommet
Original rondelle with grommet.
Original rondelle with grommet, on silk necklace.
This is my new rondelle mold. These look great, even without the grommet, and also the center hole is slightly larger than my original rondelle mold. Unfortunately, this mold isn’t as sturdy as my others and one of the molds tore a bit when I was demolding these.
New rondelle.
All the new rondelles demolded.
Ball beads – I tried layering these with clear resin, letting it cure, then adding the ash infused resin on top. Overall, I think the full bead is a better effect, so I don’t plan on layering like this again.
All the ball beads demolded.
Ball beads – varying layers
Ball beads – varying layers.

Something for my sister

My sister has been hanging on to this hair from a friend’s horse for a while now, so I’m trying to make some memory beads with it for her. 🙂

Precious!
The center bead has less hair than the other two.

 

My workspace gets pretty messy

 

Trying out some glitter in the bottom center mold, though I’m pretty sure it will sink to the bottom (I likely will need to pour beads like this in layers). This is a new mold that appears to have a faceted look that I wasn’t expecting. Guess I will soon see how it turns out!

 

I think I like the look of just two or three hairs in a bead rather than a larger amount, but this hair is a light cream color with just a few darker strands, and I thought it might not show up as well as darker colors, so I tried to make a variety.