Adventures in Resin Part II

Here's what I had ready to go...

The last time I used resin, I mostly filled up bezel cups.  I did put a few items in, but it was mostly to seal in paper.

I really wanted to explore the 3D aspects of using resin.  I'm pretty pleased overall, but I've learned some very important things:

After resin, doesn't look bad does it?

1/ tape the holes, don't trust that the resin won't seep under objects that might be covering a hole.  Check out the photo with the owl showing resin all over the back.  Fortuitously I used a slick flat surface under it, so it's smooth and didn't alter the design.  It did cover the hole I left to add embellishments in later, but you can drill resin if you are careful (yes it dries that hard!  you can cut and polish Ice Resin, it's that good)
2/ pour the resin slowly, small amounts at a time. The impulse is to hurry cause it will dry out, but it takes 30-45 minutes before it's 2 sludge like to pour.  Pouring slowly helps with air bubbles as well. 

3/ once it's pour it's really really hard to leave it alone for 3 days, but it really does take 48-72 hours to cure.  Worth the wait don't you think??

4/  prep more pieces than you think you will need just in case.  I had some resin left over once I poured what I had set up, so I quickly found another bezel, cut out Mona Lisa ( one of my favorite paintings, though I've always been fascinated by her hands more than her face)  and added a few watch parts.  It turned out OK, but it proves the point that you really do need to prep the paper... the resin soaked into parts and made it look darker in spots.  I think it's OK to sale, but I don't want to repeat that.  I had no idea how far 1 oz of resin could go... next time I'll prepare extras and pour in order of importance.  If I have left over pieces, they can be saved for the next time. 

4 leads to the question, how much will I be using resin?

I need to put thought into that.  I don't want to just pour over paper.. I really like the 3D effects you can get and using my little bitty watch parts in a way that is safe and durable. 

Now that I'm in my creative play period of the year, I really want to explore this.

I tried to create a hole before I poured the resin.. unfortunately the leaking else wear covered up the hole anyway.  Made it dead easy to drill the hole where it belong however and it looked very neat ( not messy edges)

you can see where it leaked on the back, but it didn't ruin the piece, I got lucky!!

Here is the "extra" pendant I made up with the left over resin