Tag: resin experiments

  • Where the Hell Is the J?

    And Other Sparkly Victories

    I wasn’t planning to sort the entire alphabet, but you know how it goes. One minute you’re staring into a tube of glitter letters, trying to find a J, and the next you’re hunched over with tweezers, sorting out the entire English language like you’re prepping for glitter spelling bee season. And honestly? I didn’t hate it.

    I saw the tube of alphabet glitter at Hobby Lobby—just one of those “Ooh, that would be fun in resin” moments. I decided to try using the letters to make earrings. Long rectangle molds, some resin, and little letters floating inside like magic. I made a pair for Sarah—one earring with her name, the other with Drue’s. They turned out so pretty.

    So I thought, okay, let’s do another set: Aubrey on one, Jarod on the other.

    Except… no J.

    So I started sorting the alphabet to find one. It was actually kind of relaxing. I pulled out some little paper cups, grabbed my tweezers, and even after I found the J’s (little punks), I kept sorting. It became its own little project.

    A few days later, my alphabet keychain molds came in—finally. I’d been wanting to make some, so the second I opened them, I sat down and got to work. I already had a bunch of the glitter letters sorted, and I had this idea ready to go. I started pouring, and everything just clicked. One of those rare sessions where nothing goes wrong and everything cures the way it’s supposed to.

    I made an A for Amber and spelled my name inside with the glitter letters. It came out perfect. Then I made Sarah and Aubrey. I also made a letter M with pink heart glitter, and oh my God, it was beautiful. I even used some of the same pink hearts to make a pair of heart-shaped earrings—those turned out just as pretty.

    And on the same mold tray, there was a paw print. So I made one of those too. Black resin, pink toe beans, and a letter Z in the center—for Zazu, Zuri, Zephyr, and Zorro. All black cats, all names starting with Z. The design worked exactly how I pictured it, and I stopped there. I didn’t want to mess up a perfectly good pour day.

    The next day, I decided to make some heart-shaped earrings—because Valentine’s Day is creeping up, and if I’m ever gonna get my stuff listed on Etsy, I’ve got to start somewhere. I mean, let’s be honest, I haven’t attached a single finding yet, but that’s a problem for Future Me. Present Me was feeling ambitious and full of glitter.

    I’d used pink heart glitter the day before, and it came out really pretty. In the same container, there were also red heart glitters, so I thought, great—red hearts, Valentine’s, whole theme. Let’s go.

    That’s when the glitter betrayed me.

    As soon as the resin touched some of those red hearts, the dye started bleeding. Instantly. The red ran off the glitter like it was trying to escape, and it looked horrible—cloudy, streaky, weirdly bruised. Not the aesthetic I was going for.

    So I got creative. I poured a super thin clear layer of resin and cured it. Then, one by one, I placed the red hearts with tweezers, added another thin layer of resin, and cured it again. Then I did it all over one more time.

    It looked better—but it was taking forever. These earrings were shaping up to be about $400 a pair if we’re counting time and sanity. And the red still kept bleeding just enough to be annoying.

    That was the moment I tapped out. That session officially went on pause. I’ll revisit it once I’ve forgiven the red hearts.

    After the Great Bleeding Heart Incident, I needed a break. So I pulled out my gallon-sized bag of finished resin pieces—the ones I’ve been tossing in for weeks, fully intending to “deal with them later.” Well… later showed up.

    First, I tossed the ones I knew I’d never actually use—the earliest pours and experiments that taught me what not to do. I originally saved them so I could look back one day and be proud of how far I’d come, but nope. Some things are better off in the trash.

    Then I sorted through the rest. Some of it was just okay. Some of it was Etsy-worthy. I pulled out the decent ones, grabbed my stash of hooks, jump rings, and earring findings, and started finishing everything up. I got a bunch done and felt mildly accomplished. I didn’t pour anything new for a few days—just needed to regroup.

    Then yesterday, I had a brilliant idea. Or at least it felt brilliant: red pepper flakes in resin. (Has this been done before?) I don’t have any dried flowers or pretty garden goodies over here, so I grabbed the pepper flakes and started looking around my kitchen for other leafy or interesting things to use.

    That’s when I remembered the loose-leaf tea. I have so much tea, and some of it had been hiding in the back of the cabinet for a couple of years. The tea itself was perfect—beautiful little dried petals, herbs, and fruity bits. So I grabbed a few and pulled out my open-back bezels.

    I decided to use hearts for the pepper flakes—seemed appropriate for Valentine’s Day. Everything looked great at first, until the bubbles started showing up. They’d been hiding under the tea and pepper flakes, then rose up under the UV lamp. One of the hearts came out near perfect—except when I tried to dome it, it overflowed. The second heart had a couple of bubbles—still beautiful—but when I domed that one, it overflowed just enough to fill the ring at the top. I’ll drill that out later.

    The other piece was a diamond shape, and that’s the one I put the tea in. It had the most bubbles, but it’s still gorgeous. I just wish I’d caught those bubbles earlier, because that one’s a really beautiful pendant.

    So yeah, that’s where I’m at in my resin journey right now. It’ll probably be a little while before I pour again—I’ve had a special request to do a cross-stitch project for Drue and Sarah’s wedding, and I’m also working on a knitting project for my other daughter-in-law. Resin might have to take a backseat for a bit… at least until I get tired of stitching and knitting.

  • A Resin Hot Mess

    Sooooo, I decided to try resin.
    Not because I needed a new hobby.
    Not because I could afford it.
    But because my brain said, “This looks fun and harmless.”
    My brain was… optimistic. 

    I watched a bunch of Daniel Cooper videos, nodded along, and decided I was ready. I already had a UV light from doing my nails, so UV resin felt like a reasonable place to start. I bought a couple of molds, silicone mats, mica powders, and some inks, fully convinced I was about to be a pro. 

    For my very first project, I went straight for a tiny monogram mold—an “S.” In my head, I was going to make earrings for my daughter-in-law as a gift. It was an ambitious choice for a first attempt. I tried coloring the letter with mica powder and then filled it with clear UV resin mixed with glitter. The mold itself worked fine, but my technique didn’t. I used too much glitter, the color choice was wrong, and the letter almost disappeared completely. It was a quick lesson in how unforgiving small, detailed molds can be when you’re brand new to resin. 

    For my second attempt, I made seashells. I brushed mica powder into the ridges and details, cured them, and was pleasantly surprised. They weren’t perfect, but they actually looked like seashells, which felt like a step in the right direction and a small win worth celebrating. 

    After that, I decided to try a technique I’d been curious about from the beginning. I had seen Daniel Cooper do this thing where he pours glue, swirls color into it, dips a cabochon into the pattern, lets it dry, and then seals the whole piece in resin. It looked simple enough.

    My first attempt did not go so well. I poured the glue, added the color, swirled it around, and dunked the cabochon I had made—without thinking through the very important detail of how I was going to get it back out. The glue was wet, the cabochon was slippery, and I ended up with glue all over the place. By the time I got it out, parts of the pattern had been wiped away completely where my fingers had slid across the bottom. The whole thing was a sticky, smeared mess. I wiped it clean and moved on.

    After rewatching the videos, I realized I had missed a very important step: letting the glue dry a bit before dipping anything into it. So I tried again. This time I poured the glue, added the colors, swirled them around, and then set everything aside until the next day. The results were better. The pattern transferred, although the colors were a little muddy in places. I liked it more than my first attempt, but not enough to keep it. Once the glue dried, I peeled it off the back, leaving me with a collection of clear cabochons waiting for me to get better at this resin thing before I try again.

    Since then, I’ve experimented with all sorts of small projects. I made earrings for my other daughter-in-law, played around with charms from my jewelry-making supplies by clipping the loops off the top of them, and slowly figuring out what works and what absolutely does not. There have been accidents, there have been happy accidents, and there have been plenty of moments where something went straight into the trash without hesitation. 

    One major lesson came when I decided to make coasters. I bought coaster molds and a large amount of UV resin, fully intending to make them for everyone in the family for Christmas. What I didn’t know until after the fact is that UV resin and coasters are not friends. The pieces warped, didn’t cure properly on the bottom, and generally looked terrible, so there will be no resin coasters, but I do now own a generous supply of UV resin.

    More recently, I’ve started experimenting with alcohol inks. I’m still learning how they behave, but more than anything, I’m learning patience. Resin is a craft that involves a lot of waiting—pour, wait, cure, wait, repeat. That’s something you don’t really see in videos, because all the waiting gets skipped or sped up. Learning to slow down has been part of the process. 

    I also made my first piece of resin paper, and I absolutely love it. I don’t know yet what I’ll use it for, but I know I’ll be making more.

    This whole process has been about experimenting, adjusting expectations, and learning as I go. Not everything turns out well. Not everything gets kept. But I’m enjoying it—and that’s what makes me want to keep going.

    I’ve decided to stick exclusively with UV resin. Epoxy isn’t a good fit for my space, airflow situation, or budget. UV resin works for what I want to do, and that’s enough.