Sunday, August 15, 2010

Resin ideas and projects

This is a shadowbox that I absolutely love that I created and then poured resin into it when I was done. You can pour resin into anything that is non-porous. It really helps to make your elements "POP!",
Here is a manual drill that comes with one of the resin kits or is sold separately that you can use to drill holes into the resin for making charms and/or pendants for necklaces/bracelets. It is really handy. If it wasn't so handy, I would put it into an artpiece!

People at CHA loved my resin spoons. So easy to make! You just need some old silver spoons. Look around at thrift stores or garage sales. I clean mine off first with alcohol to get rid of the grunge. I leveled my spoon with a couple of stamp pads. Put your little elements in and slowly pour the resin. Drip in a couple of drops at a time until it domes or until you get it to the level you want. Let it sit at least until the 12 hours or more until it cures. Check periodically for rising bubbles.


Here are some of the plastic molds that Little Windows carries. She uses them for photos. I use them for all sorts of little things that I put into other pieces of artwork. You can also use them for charms. Just make sure if you are going to drill holes into them that you leave some free space for holes. A tip is to leave in the freezer for a few minutes once they are done curing and they pop right out. This is a great thing to do with the kids. They love what comes out of them.

The molds come in different sizes and in sets.

Here is an idea for the swap. I have not had time to resin these yet but these were left over from the CHA demos. I did resin some but Little Windows has them. I filled little bottles with beads and text scraps. You can use whatever little bottles you have. You can find them also at
http://skybluepink.com/glass.html . They have them in all shapes and sizes. That is where I get all my funky bottles for my assemblages. You can fill the bottles just to cover the beads and text. What I do is pour the resin into little Dixie cups and sharpen the lip of the cup to make it easier to pour so I don't spill it when pouring it into the little opening of the bottle. It works great. You can also tip the bottle a little bit sideways so the resin dries sideways. Looks way cool!

On top is a resin flower that I used a cheap paint brush and brushed the resin on a paper Prima flower. Let dry on a release sheet like the ones that Avery labels come on. Once dry, it comes right on. Probably the waxy side of a freezer sheet would work. I also poured a bit of resin on my inchies but didn't cover the entire thing so give it a bit of a Pop! If you pour resin from the middle and don't do it quickly, it will go out to the edges of your paper/substrate and stop at the edges. Works better with the doming tray shown below.




Doming tray for doing resin without molds. Thoroughly explained on the Little Windows website. Go there for all sorts of vids on how to use resin and projects.

This is from CHA. This is from my demo where I filled the trays with all sorts of fun stuff. Let them sit for 12 hours and just pop out.




Okay, my iPhone doesn't take the best pictures but here are two up close.

Playing with resin is not as hard as you think it is. I hope that I gave you some ideas. Resin will work with anything that is non-porous. Just don't touch it for 12 hours while it cures. You can do the bottles, little molds, charms, spoons, etc. for the swap.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for all these details about using resin. I want to!! I've gone over the Little Windows site before and have considered some resin classes elsewhere. I'm about ready to jump! :)

Is the little drill just for the resin or if I put resin in a bottle cap, would it drill through that? I don't know what to do next once I have the resin. LOL!! So I hesitate. :)

Laura Spano said...

i'm glad that you posted this since I have no idea what to swap- i just joined because I wanted to play! thanks

Gaby Bee said...

What a lovely blog you have! I was doing some blog hopping and found you. I'm following you now! I will be back!

Thanks for the instuctions about using resin!

Greetings from Germany,
Gaby

Katie said...

This resin biz looks fun. I love the shadow box.

Samantha said...

Hi, my mother-in-law passed away and left me all sorts of jewelries. Regardless of the price of these jewelries, I'd like to put them in a couple of wooden trays for both my girls. I'd like to leave them memories of their grandma by arranging these jewelry pieces ( could be broken, cheap, new, old, plastic, metal, real stones, or gold, silver, old or real gems) on a tray that they can have. Any advise for me, especially, I'm going to need lots of resin to pour to make the surface flat. Should I use the resin you use? Please help me preserve and pass on these memories to my girls. Thanks!