Resin Jewellery

Look what I got for Christmas...

Whilst other wives got perfume or lingerie from their husbands for Christmas, mine settled on dangerous chemicals. Specifically, all the equipment to make my own resin jewellery.

I don't think I could manage lampwork glass or polymer clay because I'm not good at sculpting but resin is mould-based so we agreed that would be a great gift for a crafty wife. Here are a few samples of what I've made so far.

I've found Helen Cant's articles on resin in Make Jewellery magazine really helpful and my husband used her supplier recommendations when doing his Christmas shopping. The polyester water clear casting resin and colour pigments came from East Coast Fibre Glass Supplies and the moulds came from Metal Clay Ltd.

Making the resin is surprisingly easy, although you need a face mask and a well ventilated (aka kitchen door open) space as the fumes are quite bad for you. You measure out the resin and then add 1-2% catalyst. I used a syringe to add the catalyst as the quantities are quite small. You've then got about 15 minutes to add colour pigment if you like and get your resin into the mould ready to set.

I've been leaving my castings 24-48 hours before removing them from the mould. The small castings seem to come out easily but the bigger items like the bangles take a bit more effort. The hardest part is then the sanding. My husband made me wet sand each item with 6 grades of sandpaper and then polish each casting with three grades of plastic polish (he's a model maker and into that sort of thing).

The bangles pictured above are my favourite make so far. I started with the plain green and pink ones and then moved to encasing stuff in the resin. The star bangle is not a perfect success as the foil stars sort of sank towards the front of the mould but I'm quite proud of the buttons one where I got each button to stand perfectly on end.

Encasing is the other tricky part - getting whatever you want to clad in resin into the right place without any air bubbles. Following Helen's advice, I found that it's best to create a coloured layer at the back of an encased piece, although the button ring you see here is entirely clear. The resin bonds really well to itself so you can add a layers quite easily. 

In terms of converting the resin castings to jewellery, for the rings and brooch, I scuffed the back of the resin and then glued on the jewellery findings with Araldite. My husband hand drilled the necklace and drop earring cabochons and inserted small pegs that I then attached using jump rings.

The sewing-relating pieces you see here are based on Helen's Stitch in Time project in January 2011 's Make Jewellery Magazine.

I'm now starting a three-layer bracelet and I've just bought some larger moulds to have a bash at paperweights. I wonder what I can encase in resin next...

Melx