Fly Butterfly necklace project on page 80.
Gay Isber
Cure UV resin in a sunny place. This is my workspace at home, where I cure mine.
Gay Isber
UV RESIN
UV resin is a special kind of resin that works a little differently than the normal casting resins discussed in this chapter and used throughout this book. It cures in direct sunlight in a few minutes.
When you are getting ready to cure something with UV resin in it, think it through: if the sun can’t get to even a small part of your piece, because you have resin underneath something, for example, then that part will not cure. You can work around this by curing your pieces in layers. I love UV resin, but I don’t make big things with it. I tend to use it for small projects and touch-ups like repairing a scratch. Gel nail polish works in a similar way to UV resin. For days when there isn’t much sunlight, use a small UV light made for curing nail polish. Many of these cost less than $20, and you can get a lot of use out of one.
UV resin is great for adding a dome effect to flat pieces of resin. You can put UV resin on top of a cured resin item and allow it to pool. Do it drop by drop.
Buy UV resin in totally opaque black bottles so that the sun can’t reach the liquid and cure it inside the bottle. This happened to me when I bought some very expensive resin in a dark brown bottle. The bottle was quite dark, but I left it sitting on my worktable while the sun was shining brightly, and it cured the resin—a costly mistake!
MUST-HAVE ITEMS
♦ Disposable gloves. Buy them sized correctly so you won’t be as tempted to take them off. Do not work without them.
Always wear disposable gloves when working with resin.
Gay Isber
♦ Safety goggles or glasses. This will ensure that chemicals don’t splash accidentally into your eyes. I wear glasses all the time, so my eyes are protected.
♦ Wet wipes. Use these for all cleanups before, during, and after using resin. Though alcohol-based wipes work better for both resin and epoxy clay (you can improvise by adding drops of hand sanitizer to your wet wipe), they might irritate your hands. Baby wipes are less effective as a cleaner but are safer for your skin. Wet paper towels are not a replacement. Don’t flush the wipes down the toilet—just throw them in the trash. Denatured alcohol, not acetone, should be used for cleaning big messes like a spill. Always wash your hands with warm water and soap after working with resin.
Sarah2
♦ Heavy-duty plastic freezer bags. These are so useful; resin doesn’t stick to them. Keep a box of them handy. You can use both sides. A swatch of a thick, clear shower curtain or other vinyl will also work.
♦ Wooden stir sticks (popsicle sticks). This is what you will use to mix the resin. You can throw them away after each use or reuse them once the resin on them cures.
♦ Plastic disposable 1-ounce (30ml) measuring cups. Make sure these are marked with graduated measuring lines, like the kind included with liquid medicines. Use a permanent marker to accent the lines on the cups so they are more visible. Don’t skip this step, as measuring accurately is essential to successful resin casting.
Kimberly Hall
AlenKadr
Charles Brutlag
Nail Bikbaev
GOOD TO HAVE
♦ Permanent marker. This is for marking the lines on the measuring cups before you pour.
♦ White surface. You can see your colors more clearly if you work on white. Silicone mats work, too, but cover your area so it is as white as possible (e.g., with white paper), then cover with a cheap plastic drop cloth. Also, protect the floor with a flattened cardboard box or a big tarp.
♦ Level surface. You want the resin to cure evenly.
♦ Toothpicks. These are super for mixing in a tiny bit of color and for popping resin bubbles.
♦ Colorants. There are specially designed resin dyes that are recommended, but colorants can also include acrylic paints, alcohol dyes, and pigment powders.
♦ Molds. You can pour your resin into or onto molds.
♦ Heavy-duty multi-surface adhesive. This can be a craft glue, such as E6000®; just make sure it’s not an instant glue.
Shown here are the two parts of the resin (in the bottles), the measuring cup and wooden stir stick, and a plastic-protected cookie tray that has been well marked as for use in jewelry making only.
Gay Isber
Shutter B Photo
♦ Green floral foam. This is super for objects that are not flat—embed them in the foam to keep them level while they cure.
♦ Foils and cellophane. Gold, silver, and copper foils or leaf, cellophane, and creative films like those used for fingernail art can all be used in your projects.
♦ Old paintbrush. Use this with pigment powders.
♦ Tape. Use heavy-duty clear packing tape.
♦ Embellishments. Use whatever you want to embed in your resin, like beads, rhinestones, findings, trinkets, pearls, etc. See a huge list of possibilities on page 18.
Andrenko Tatiana
NOT ESSENTIAL, BUT HANDY
♦ Lamp. A bright light with any kind of bulb is great to use to help you see colors and bubbles easily. A downward-facing or bendable lamp with an incandescent light bulb will speed up curing time and make air bubbles rise faster so that you can easily blow on them to pop them or poke them with a toothpick.
♦ Silicone pad. Resin won’t stick to silicone. Find a pad for cooking or sold specifically for resin and epoxy clays. I use a white one I found online for resin work and an orange one from my favorite epoxy clay manufacturer for epoxy clay work.
♦ Mold release. Use a spray mold release in your molds to keep them from getting tiny tears when you pull out the resin casts; such tears will ruin the molds if you use them a lot. Spray coconut oil is