The good, the bad, and the ugly - Resin take 2 and glazing!

Happy Monday everyone!
Good news and bad news! 

THE GOOD 
I decided to make some more resin pieces!

I took some of the sprinkles I had and placed them by hand.  I added a little glitter to the resin to add that little special touch.

Since we were up in the mountains at the time, I picked some wildflowers outside and  tried placing them in some resin.  I do like the flowers in resin, but it would have probably looked better if it wasn't so cloudy.

I've started glazing my pieces, which REALLY clears up any cloudiness that happened.  At first I used clear nail polish since I had that on hand, but then I swapped to Triple Thick glaze after some research.  So lookin good.  Yay! :)

THE BAD 
I wanted to see what would happen if I put a sticker on resin! I had some old stickers from when I was a kid, so I took an old one that had fallen off its sheet to test things out.  I coated it with clear nail polish to protect the sticker and stuck it in.  I then placed glitter behind it because it didn't fill the whole area.  However, I noticed a bubble inconveniently located next to her nose, so I attempted to move the sticker around in an attempt to move it elsewhere.  I successfully moved the bubble, but glitter went places where I didn't want it to go.

Sorry Pocahontas sticker. You will be missed.

I also tried doing gummy bears, since you can stick food in resin.  However, if turned out like this.

Why is it so chunky you ask?

THE UGLY 
My Bead Landing resin has kicked the bucket before I could use it all. :'( The bottom of the resin was really chunky, cloudy, and crystallized, which messed up some of my pieces. I read online that resin will crystallize over time, so I'm guessing the resin kit I bought had been sitting in Michaels for quite a while.  Needless to say, I won't be buying that brand of resin anymore since the packaging doesn't allow for you to see the condition of the resin. 

Next time, I'll be trying Easy Cast resin and let you all know how that goes! 

Dying to dye! - DIY ombre clothing

My wonderful friend Grace called me on Monday wondering if I wanted to have a craft day with her! Of course it was an offer I could not refuse. ;-) 

Since I left the choice up to her about what she would like to do, she suggested doing some ombre stuff.   I picked up some royal blue Rit powered dye and Grace (who is showing our test t-shirt) brought some clothes for us to mess around with.

We found LOTS of ombre dying tutorials on pinterest, but we kinda decided to wing it and combined a bunch of tutorials together. 

First we prepared the Rit dye according to the off the stove instructions minus 1 gallon of water.  We also had a bucket filled with ice and water. Please excuse the ghetto-ness of using a stick as a stirring rod. As I said, we were winging it.

Before dying, we got the clothes wet with water, which apparently is supposed to help the dye climb up the clothes and create a softer gradient.  

Then we dipped the bottom of the clothes into the dye bath and allowed some of the dye to climb up the garment a bit above the bath surface.

The dyed clothes were then dipped into the cold water bath a little above where the dye stopped for a bit.

Again, the clothes are dipped in the dye bath higher than where the dye had stopped previously.  After allowing the dye to climb, place it in the cold water bath again as before.

Basically we repeated this process over and over again until we were happy with the results.  As Grace pointed out to me, the ombre effect is really due to the TIME that the garment remains in the dye, so keep this in mind if you try this.

 

In the end, we were pretty happy with the results and tried it with other clothes!!!

 

But be warned - you might want to do this with gloves or else you'll end up like this!

Resin d’Etre – Bead Landing Resin kit review and resin experiments!

Happy Friday everyone!

I’m really really excited to show you this project since I’ve been thinking about doing this for a long time!

I actually got interested in doing resin late one night while surfing around on Youtube.  I stumbled upon a video where a girl made some cute resin charms, and proceeded to search all over Youtube for other resin tutorials.  From that point on, I was HOOKED and determined to try it out!

I proceeded to run over to my local craft stores to look for things.  I found a Bead Landing Resin kit in Michaels in the jewelry tools area and bought it.

I finally pulled it out after finals were done and had the adequate space/ventilation to work.  The kit comes with the following:

•          A plastic mold with an oval, a circle, and a square
•          A stencil with the same shapes
•          A bottle of resin and a bottle of hardener
•          Stir stick
•          A little hand drill
•          Measuring cups (like the cough medicine kind)
•          Photo paper
•          Various jewelry findings
•          3 different necklaces 

I looked at the instructions to find that this particular resin takes 48 hours, which surprised me since other resins take 24 hours to cure.  Also, this resin was a bit different in that it’s a 2:1 ratio of resin to hardener.

I decided to try things out by using cake sprinkles (thanks for the suggestion Mackenzie!) and glitter.  I also decided to use another mold in addition to the one included with the kit.  It’s supposed to be a chocolate/candy mold, but people online say you can use just about any mold (silicone molds, paint trays, ice cube trays, etc).

I whipped up 30 mL of resin total and made a total of 5 pieces in the garage.  I did notice that while pouring the resin, the resin was a bit chunky, but the chunkiness went away when it was mixed with the hardener.  Bubbles also appeared as I stirred since I was initially stirring too quickly.  Thus, it really is recommended to stir SLOWLY for about 2 minutes and leave the mixture out for 5 minutes afterwards to allow any bubbles to disappear.  After pouring the resin, bubbles also popped up since I stuck sprinkles in there.  I just tried to take a toothpick to move them around and try to pop them.

I covered them up to prevent them dust, dog & cat hair, and bugs from getting in my pieces.  I checked on them during the 2 days it takes to set to make sure they were working and weren’t accidentally bumped/tipped over.

48 hours later, I popped them out!

The mold that came with the kit was easy to use and the pieces popped out easily.  However, I was kinda disappointed in that the pieces were kinda cloudy.

 

As for the candy mold, that took a lot more effort.  I read online that you can stick the mold in the freezer for a bit and it makes it much easier.  Luckily for me, this actually worked!  These pieces were much shinier possibly because of a difference in plastic.

There were a few grooves and indents from bubbles on the surface of the charms, but I’m hoping to fix this when I make my next batch of resin and coat them with fingernail polish.  Crossing my fingers!

Needless to say I WILL be doing this again with different molds and different materials!  I’ve got flowers/plants, stickers, and other little trinkets!

Stay tuned for more! :)