Too Soft!

Got around to doing some resin samples this morning, but didn't clock the fact that I had miss-measured one of the batches of hardener until a couple of hours ago. So, half have set, half haven't...and none of them want to come out of the new moulds I bought. Typically one horrific chain of supermarkets silicon ice cube trays are indeed superior to another.

Fortunately however, I know that the thing I was trying to set will work and look good and I can get on with a few idea! Hurrah!

I'm quite enjoying making resin samples of colours and different pigmenting agents. Or in other words working out what I can (a) buy on the cheap or (b) find in the house and given my hardener has started to become increasingly more yellow (it must be two years old by now!) I may as well use it up experimenting or on opaque work. I did the above samples at Christmas using mostly soft artists pastels ground up using a pestle and mortar and glitter. What can I say? I'm a girl and I like glitter! Anyway, today's experiments included loose tea after being inspired by designer Claire Lowe, and gel food colouring as an alternative to transparent resin pigments. The main samples I'll keep secret until I can work them into a design because they go with a particular piece of poetry etc. But on the others, the gel colouring works really well as an alternative to the expensive dyes and I only used the tip of a straw and this over pigmented my samples. They cost about £15 from Lakeland and that's less than most of the dyes I found for resin - plus you get to make yummy things like this:

Not resin, obviously, and I wouldn't recommend using them for baking if you're re-dipping your resin sticks, but if you aren't, these are yummy. I'm slightly obsessed with making proper French Macarons at the moment, these aren't todays attempt, they're the last ones and I just prefer the colour combination even if the new batch look more like macarons.

Anyway, instead of whinging about the resin not working, I'm going to put it back on my shelf out of harms way, give it until the morning to see if it'll set and go have a nice treat and enjoy that something did go right today!

Moorings...

In a salt ring of moonlight

The dinghy nods at nothing.

It paws the bright water

And scatters its own shadow

In a false net of light.

- Moorings, Norman MacCaig

(Commission 2009 - Stirling Silver, Resin and Rubber)

Slate Tile Brooch

Stirling silver and slate resin brooch.

I love this material combination. The powdered slate in the resin gives this great dark but soft surface you just want to touch and any bubbles or grooves from sanding - in the right piece - can actually make it look more natural.

However...anyone else thinking a range of Dominoes is in my future?

Resin Cufflinks '09

I got commissioned to make presents for the staff at work again this year, which is always fun, until it comes to working out what to do for the gents. Last year I made slate resin cufflinks, very simple pieces, one of which I really liked and was really proud of, the other I still feel needs tweaked. It happened again this year.

I admit I'm slightly stumped when it comes to what men wear as jewellery - it's something I really have to do some more research into as I don't have brothers and my dad and grandfather don't wear jewellery. I've also never had to buy any for a guy. So I went with cufflinks again and I decided to make them a bit colourful.

Anyway, I love the blue ones, they're a little reminiscent of Star Trek, but I worked exactly as they were in my head - which barely ever happens. I think they go with my style a little more than the yellow, but that's mostly because I couldn't quite get the colour I wanted (until after I'd filled them typically) and I managed to miss align one dot, so it's still driving me mad! I also completely polished them after I took these photos, as I'd not done the edges yet - thank God this was before my ultra sonic cleaner, pickle and quenching pot froze solid in the -14 degree weather!

Anyway, I just hope they recipients liked them!

(More on the way, just editing the pictures!)

Floral Jacks

I've been experimenting with these little flowers for a few years now, I keep making them and not knowing what to make from them. I've left them empty, put silver leaf on them and filled them with silicone and now I've started with resin. But I'm still clueless about what to do with them!

The first thing my family said when I popped the resin ones out of their acetates was that they looked like Jacks - the game where you scatter them on the floor, bounce a bouncy ball and pick them up between bounces. Given my game theme last year I'm considering giving it a whirl.

However, I prototyped these to see if the printed colour would come off onto the resin successfully, it did, though not as successfully as I hoped as as soon as they get wet the ink runs.