Skip to main content

Experimenting With Ice Resin


Or should I say more experimenting with Ice Resin! As a continuation to my blog post last week I have been at it again and doing some more interesting things with epoxy resin. 

My first attempts didn't cure properly, possibly because I didn't measure the two parts accurately enough or it might have been because I didn't mix the acrylic paint properly before adding it to the resin. Anyway, my second attempts which were the swirly abstract shapes you can see in the bottom right photo below did cure I'm glad to say. They are now leaning up against my work shed window and look really pretty with the light shining through them :D 


So armed with slightly more but still a fairly small amount of knowledge about resin I tried again on Wednesday. I made a few pairs of copper earrings, one with two little copper bowls soldered to the bottom and two more with pierced out shapes, then added some coloured resin.




In my haste to get going with the resin I didn't make sure the copper was clean so ended up with some copper dust in the bright green resin in the bullet shape earrings top left. I also wasn't very keen on my colour choices for the bullet shape earrings.......

I then mixed some more resin for a pendant and used some pretty pinks and oranges {which I did like!} Please excuse the poor photo but the light was going by the time I took it.


I took some more photos in the slightly better {but not much} light yesterday morning after they'd had several hours in the airing cupboard. I discovered a hair in one of the purple rectangles in the bullet earrings but as I don't like these very much anyway I'm not too bothered! They'll need a couple more days to cure properly then I'll oxidize the copper and add earwires to the other two pairs.



I'm not sure whether to sand the two resin "dots" completely flat in these earrings or leave them. Decisions! You can see my camera reflected in them as I took the photo, it's not another hair :D

I've got to say I am more drawn to the abstract squiggly wire designs and would really like to make earrings using this design. Which means creating a matching pair.... 

I flattened and soldered some more copper wire and rounded it to smooth out any kinks then started playing with my graduated pliers.


I soon discovered the smaller lengths of wire weren't long enough to be able to make anything big enough so I ended up with just one pair of fairly well matched earrings in the making....


These now need to be soldered at the points where the wires touch then filed and sanded flat. Then I'll solder a piece of copper tube to the top for the earwire. I'm really keen to get some more earrings made so I spent some time yesterday afternoon making more lengths of flattened wire - longer this time so I can make a few more pairs today.

Then I'll be able to get the resin and acrylic paints out again and start playing!

The results of all this and the finished earrings should hopefully be posted next week.....



Labels:

Comments

  1. Ooh... the orange and pink are so retro, lovely.
    Heather :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. Thanks Heather, they are a bit aren't they :D

      Delete

  2. These look nice Tracy, Great Improvement

    ReplyDelete

  4. Amazing work Tracy! I can't wait to see the final results.

    ReplyDelete

  5. Beautiful, I love it. Great work Tracy!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Your comments and questions are very welcome!
If you would prefer to contact me directly please use the contact form on my "get in touch" page.

Popular posts from this blog

Etching Silver Using Nail Art Stamps

So my love/hate relationship with etching sterling silver continues. I've tried a few times now and always end up with different results most of them not that great to be honest. I've tried connecting the silver and a piece of copper to a 9v battery and also heating the ferric nitrate. Sometimes the results are good sometimes not so good. I currently have an etched piece of silver sheet waiting to be reticulated and rid it of the mess that is the etched "pattern". 
I now know that using stamps and Stayz On ink just doesn't work with silver - the time needed to etch using ferric nitrate is much longer than etching copper and the ink starts to wear away after about an hour. This results in the pattern being patchy as the resist is eaten away and the silver ends up quite lumpy and course looking. I have yet to try using pnp paper. I don't know why but it all seems a bit of a faff to do. I don't have a laser printer so would need to find somewhere or someone…
30 comments
Read more

Rolling Mill Textures On Metal

I had another play with my rolling mill last week using some of the texture sheets from Etsy shop Rolling Mill Resource. I used some sterling silver and copper sheet and soon discovered it's best to get organized before you start!

I cut the sheet to size and worked out which design was going on which piece of metal. I also tried a feather but more on that later. Most of the sheet I used was 20g/0.8mm with one piece of 18g/1.0mm and one of 22g/0.6mm.
I've read that you should do a dead pass of the metal through the rolling mill with the gap the same size as the metal and texturing item. I'm not sure what this is supposed to achieve but I don't bother doing it. Judging the correct size of gap between the rollers is a trial and error thing that you discover by setting the gap then starting to roll the metal through. If there's too much resistance you make the gap bigger until there's just enough resistance to roll the metal through without giving yourself a herni…
15 comments
Read more

Embossing Metal With My Sizzix Bigshot

I must admit up until a few weeks ago I was vaguely familiar with the name Sizzix but as to what you actually did with a "Sizzix" I was completely in the dark! That was until I stumbled across a video from Vintaj showing how you could use their embossing folders with a Bigshot to create designs on metal ("metal" - my favourite word after chocolate!)
I was really impressed and itching to have a go, I just needed a Bigshot........ I waited a few weeks then when the urge to possess one overcame me I went out debit card at the ready..............and the shop had sold out! So I trundled off to The Range on the off chance and came home clutching my own surprisingly heavy pink and black wonder machine. It sat on the dining room table for a couple of days while I waited for the embossing folders I'd ordered online to arrive then the time came to start playing!


I started with some pre-cut 24g copper hearts and the Wildflower Vines and the Butterfly Swirls Deco Embossin…
24 comments
Read more