projects

I never thought I’d get into make jewelry, but I’m really having fun with playing with resin, which led me to investigate wire wrapping, and now possibly even beading. But one thing at a time! I get too excited about too many things and then I lose track! Curbing the enthusiasm a little bit has paid off. I’m focusing on getting the resin thing right this time.

So here’s my spread of pieces. I’m not showing you ALL of them, because the first ones were such utter failures that I’m embarrassed to show them. These, admittedly, didn’t come out as great, but I think I know why – and that’s the beauty of trial and error. The learning part. Frustrating, yes, but once we move on from being frustrated, we pick up and try again.

Well, I used up all my resin so I’ll need to wait for another shipment before I can try again, but I do intend to.

So this is what they looked like when I poured the resin in the molds. I waited about two or three hours before I embedded stickers, and topped the backings with glitter. I used some generic glitter from Mal-wart (for practice pieces), but I also have this fine glitter from Doodlebug that I bought special. It’s pretty stuff, and I’ve got quite a bit of it left.

So in experimenting with different mold release agents (home remedy stuff, before buying the “official” bottle from the company), I have so far found that cooking oil is the best. Being clever, or thinking I was being clever, I tried Vaseline on this batch. Don’t use Vaseline… *sigh*

The pieces came out dulled and I’ll tell you why. First, I thought coating the molds with Vaseline would make the face of the resin piece smooth and mirror-finish shiny. Even better, I thought it’d be a great idea to melt the Vaseline into that mirror finish I wanted so badly to achieve. I used a blow dryer to achieve this. Problem is, you have to use the blow dryer (or an exhale through a straw) to get all the bubbles out of the liquid resin that you just poured. What does this do? Melts the Vaseline INTO the still liquid resin, and then it sets funny. Dull.

So – just don’t use Vaseline, is what I say. So far, the cooking oil works well. And I’ll probably just break down and buy the official Mold Release spray from Castin’ Craft anyway. Grr.

I ordered a different kind of resin for my next experiments. I might coat these pieces with it to see how they might look. That’s what experimental batches are for anyway! More experimentation!

I should mention that I’m only using mold release for the hard plastic molds I got (bought them on ResinObsession.com). My prettiest pieces came out of a silcone mold ice tray! It already has a mirror-finish surface. Like so:

The stickers are just a batch of sticker flakes I bought from Etsy.com. I wondered what sticker flakes were when I saw them listed. They are exactly as they say they are. Flakes of stickers, rather than a sheet of stickers. I searched for “kawaii stickers”, and I’m pretty sure the ones depicted above are San-X – not to be confused with Sanrio and the Hello Kitty et al line of products.

And lastly, some wire wrapping experiments:

Didn’t follow a pattern really, but I did do a little research on some techniques for wire wrapping. The first piece is just milk glass (fake moonstone, heh). The second wire thingy was my attempt at making a “kawaii” style heart with a wing. Not carefully planned or anything, just sat down in front of the TV next to the husband and messed with the bulk of “Funwire” that I got. Yeah, I get cheap kid’s stuff before going into the Pro supplies. Smart, huh?

So, those are the latest bits and pieces of my happenings.