Resin Castin'

A very interesting medium to get involved in, a couple of things made it a little bit of a struggle though.




Step 1: Get the resin, a quick suggestion to save you some trouble, make sure you hear sloshing or it might have been sitting on the shelf too long, you should be able to find this at places like Micheal's, although the staff might not even know it exists.

You'll also notice the small bottle, which is the catalyst which creates a chemical reaction that heats and sets the resin.

A side note, This stuff stinks to high heaven and I'm sure it's not good for the lungs, so at the very least I would get some ventilation going.

Step 2: Gather your materials!

I used a flower from a aging bouquet, my aim was for the flower to look like it was blowing in the wind.







Step 3: Make a mistake!



This is one fun example!

Because I was using a baking tin, I did want to use it again in the future for cooking purposes, so thinking I was real smart, I covered it in tin foil and smoothed it down the best I could.

But on a side note, I would suggest for your first couple times mixing the stuff, that you get a small measuring cup and use tin foil to cover the inside.

Step 4: Start the mixing

I found that the directions for the amount of catalyst didn't line up too well. I highly suggest starting with a couple of small projects (a necklace pendant, for example) so that you can get your barrings in how much you need to add.

I realized a little late that my project was a little large for a first timer.

Generally you are working front to back for layered, so make sure you have a composition in mind for when you start to put things in.

Step 5: Waiting for hardening/layering

For the first layer, I didn't add enough of the catalyst and I had to add more when it was already in the mold, I made sure that didn't happen the second layer, but don't go too crazy with it.



A kind of hard to see this in progress picture, I just put down the flower before dumping on the next layer of resin.





Step 6: Hopefully not your step

I took the resin out of the mold and agonizingly and painstakingly peeled off all of the tin foil (I honestly haven't gotten it all off)

Step 7: Admiring your final result



Kind of...notice mine looks just a little bumpy?

Step 8: Sanding down and painting your 'masterpiece'

Hopefully from reading this, you didn't make the same mistake I did and wont have to do something ridiculous like this,

In an attempt to smooth the front at least, I grabbed some sand paper and a cloth to cover my mouth from the horrible stench and all the lung clogging particles flying everywhere and then used some clear acrylic medium to get rid of the rough white grain that the sand paper made.




And there you go! I actually does look awesome in person, I tried to get the best picture I could.

Hopefully I'll make some pendents or earrings for next week