Trying A New Craft

I haven’t crafted for a very long time. Every now and again I drag everything out of the craft cupboard. Have a look at it all then end up putting it all back. I don’t have a craft room and can’t abide the mess of it all over the dining table. I had lost my crafting mojo.

Then we went on holiday. I’ve not been abroad since before having my son and he is 19 so a proper holiday was slightly overdue. Sat on a very idyllic beach idly playing with the sand I saw hundreds of tiny little seashells. Bing! Lightbulb moment. The holiday was so lovely that I wanted to capture it in some way and suddenly seashells in resin came to mind. I’ve never used or even tried resin before so I got Googling.

Then I got ordering. So many parcels were arriving back at home for when we got back. My daughter had thought I lost the plot.

I wanted to recreate the beach feel with the resin. I used some of the small shells and tried with colour too. This is the first ones I made using a mold. I also used UV resin so that it would dry quicker.

I put some resin in first just to cover the bottom of the mold. Then cured under my nail lamp for 2 minutes.

Next I added white glitter to appear as sand mixing it with the resin before putting it in the mold. The same for the blue. I cured again for 2 minutes but it came out tacky, this is because I had colour in it so back in again it went.

Another thin layer of clear resin which I put the shells on top of. Cured. Then the final top-up of resin. Cured.

Because these were done in a mold the resin does shrink and what went in perfectly flat came out slightly dipped in the middle. A quick google and I learn to take out of the mold and do another top layer which will dome slightly.

Not too bad for the first attempt.

Next, I tried the tubes that I had ordered.

I quickly learned that these are a devil to get out of the molds. The easiest are the round ones like the one in the picture as you can do a twist and squeeze thing to them. I also refined my findings as I thought the screw at the top rather ugly. You can see the finished results over on my Etsy shop, Cornish Resins, as I popped them all up for sale.

Lastly, I moved away from molds and tried open backed frames. I am loving how these have come out.

Supplies used: ( affiliate links)