Christmas Project

So, shhhh!

Inspiration: http://www.oopseydaisyblog.com/2011/08/photo-tile-coasters-using-resin.html

Desire: Old Nashville photos... there were none. Except in an expensive book...

Result: Quilt square coasters!

They turned out so much better than I was expecting. But then, I had low expectations since I'd never done this before! All my resin experience was pouring into molds, not onto flat surfaces. So, I'm happy. I'd be a little happier with certain things being different, of course, but these are pretty good for a first try. I do wish I'd been able to find thinner tiles. Oh, well. Next time, maybe.

What I did: I cut the quilt squares out of a magazine, mod podged the front and back (as recommended in this resin tutorial: http://skinnerstudio.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-embed-paper-in-resin-part-one.html), mod podged them onto the tiles, trimmed the edges to be even with the tile, mod podged the edges again. After letting that dry for a while, I got the resin ready to go. It took between 2 and 3 ounces of mixed up resin (resin + hardener) to do 8 tiles. After pouring, popping the bubbles, putting the bubblier tiles under a light in the hopes of the heat lifting some of the air bubbles, and putting them all on this tray, Daddy moved the tiles up on the top of a shelf, and I left them alone for over 24 hours. I got them down this morning, and they seem to be fully hardened! They're nice and glossy! The resin had run down the sides of several of them, so I got out my dremel, attached a sanding/polishing bit, and went around the edges, being careful not to hit the top, or even the top of the edges.

Now all that's left to do is add something to the bottom of the tiles, hopefully a thin layer of cork. I might try to find something to finish the edges off a little better too, but that's not totally necessary.

This was a neat project, so I'll probably try it again. I'd like to try using photos, like the inspiration. I'm curious to know if they need mod podge-ing like regular paper does.

Playing with Resin - Take 1

A couple of weeks ago, I bought THIS kit. I've been very interested in resin jewelry since seeing pieces like THIS and THIS around. So, I started looking around, and decided that the easiest thing to do first off would be to obtain a kit. So I did. I've also been studying THIS blog's tutorials (see left side bar for the other tutorial posts).

I finally got to pour my first batch of resin last night! The pieces came out this morning. All in all, it wasn't as epic a fail as I feared it would be. I would say it wasn't even just a plain ol' fail! However, it was pretty far from a stunning success. A lot of what I read said there is a lot of trial and error - there's something of a learning curve. The question now is, will I keep working at it until I'm past the curve??? I hope so! I don't like trying something just once; I don't feel like I give it a fair shot. So I'm depending on y'all to keep me in line. I want to work at this until I get a really good batch, okay? Thanks.

Now, here's what I learned from the first batch:

• Powder pastels are pretty difficult to get thoroughly mixed in. I always ended up with little chunks or pieces that wouldn't dissolve completely. I can imagine certain circumstances where this would be just fine, even rather interesting, but I was hoping for some good, solid color. (I was at Walmart when I got the pastels, so my colorant choices were severely limited.)

• The paper embellishments/pictures/etc. need to be the right size, or at least a little smaller than the mold. Not bigger. Yeah, I know. Duh, right? Yeah... well... A couple of my pictures were a little on the largish side. Made it rather difficult to embed, and messed up the final layer of resin a bit. Oh, well. Learning curve, learning curve... It's all part of the learning curve.

• Not all resins are created equal! Yeah, so this point's kinda important. In the tutorial I linked to above, she uses EasyCast clear epoxy resin, or something like that. Well, my kit came with a different type of resin - the name of which escapes me at the moment. Thankfully, I read the instructions, and discovered that it was a 2-1 ration. 2 parts resin, 1 part hardener, I believe. The first pour was that ratio. The final pours were... 1-1. Like the resin in the tutorial. And it's not hard enough on some of the pieces. Oops. Learning curve...

• A heat gun/embossing tool would probably not be a bad investment. I think I'm gonna look into getting one pretty soon, or I might try using my wood burners first. A few of my pieces have air bubbles which I couldn't coax out with tooth picks. The above tutorial makes it sound like the heat gun really helps with that. We shall see. Maybe. :P

There you have it. My first lessons from my first batch of resin. Right now, I'm in the middle of cleaning the reusable cups and stir sticks that came with my kit (go figure; the resin didn't pop out when I pulled the sticks out.), and the pieces that are hard enough need to be sanded and polished. Then on to the next project! I don't feel like getting pictures right now, but hopefully I'll put some up before too long.

'Til next time, y'all!