playing with resin from Little Windows

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There was this woman at a booth right across from where I was doing demos at the Quilt Festival. It was not until the last day that I made it over there. She had this great way of making resin charms/pendants without the bezels. Now, I have seen some other products elsewhere but I did not really like them because the resin did not come out easily.

http://www.little-windows.com/

http://little-windows.com/store.htm?cid=6 resin

http://little-windows.com/store_item.htm?itemid=58&cid=13 mini drill only $6!

I finally got around to trying it. I used found objects and made bracelets out of them. I just wanted to play. The molds were easy to use. They did come a little bit warped but they bent back straight without a problem. There is a leaflet included with the resin kit that tells you everything you need to do. Instructions were easy to follow.

Some of my found objects were thicker than others. They needed more resin. I guess you would need to watch that. Probably more shallow items would work better. I really liked how the buton and and the flatter charms turned out.

The resin itself was easy to mix and it did not smell. The trick is to stir slowly so you don't get bubbles. I did not get that many bubbles when pouring or afterwards. I did get a few but they easily popped. I found one trapped underneath a charm but I never would have found that anyway.

I waited overnight before popping the resin charms out of the mold. I put it in the freezer for about 30 seconds before doing so. If you lay it on a hard surface, resin side down and press with thumb right in the middle, they come out easier than twisting the mold (for me, at least). I started drilling the holes right away. I got the mini drill that was on their site. It is a handy little tool. I think it is adorable. There is one thing though. The length of the drill bit is fixed. If you do deeper pieces, then you will need something like a Dremel tool or something with a thinner diameter drill bit to go through the resin. The mini drill will only go so far since you cannot adjust the drill bit.

I had no problems putting holes in a couple of the charms. The problem was with the wire. I started putting the bracelet together about 15 hours after the resin was poured. It was still too soft. The wire was ripping into the edges. I stopped and waited an extra day before doing the wire stuff. It was still easy to ream out the holes in the resin with the little drill two days after pouring.

I usually use resin from Rio Grande. This resin is just as good and the pricing is comparable, if not better. What I liked about the kit was that there was a clear plastic lid to the kit that served as a clear cover for my mold while the resin was hardening. That kept the dust off. For those of you who have done resin before, dust can be a pain because it can show up on your resin like little dimples.

Of course, you can use this resin with the metal bezels. Suze Weinberg and Susan Lenart Kazmer carry bezels. I like the no bezels thing, too. This way is so much easier than using tape and borders and yada yada yada.

There is one other cool thing that I have not tried yet, they sell this doming tray that you can use to put a dome on your resin piece. That would be great for buttons, pendants, etc...I just think that would be fun to do.

http://little-windows.com/store_item.htm?itemid=62&cid=7 small doming tray

If you try it, let me know how it turns out.