Resin Jewelry – Ornamento

Earrings from the Seashore

By: ornamento.blog August 8, 2019August 7, 2019

Art, Epoxy Resin, Resin Jewelry, ShellsArt, earrings, SeashellsLeave a Comment

When I was a kid, we would challenge one another with tongue twisters. One I remember is “she sells sea shells by the seashore.” I often wondered how anyone could make money selling seashells near a beach. That was then and this is now. Shells are harder to come by on the beach nowadays. Still, a friend did manage to find some seashells which she asked me to make into earrings for her.

The shells looked like small mussels to me and were pretty delicate so I decided to give them a reinforcing coat of epoxy resin after I drilled tiny holes for jump rings. 2DrilledCoatedShells

My new dehydrator came in handy for drying the shells after I coated them because the weather is humid around here. By the way, this dehydrator was $24.99 when I bought it on Amazon a couple of months ago to use with metal clay. Now it’s selling for three times as much and I have no idea why. But there are plenty of dehydrators to be had for under $40.00 if you shop around.

6 Dehyrator

I like to weigh my resin on a gram scale. I put a silicone egg cup on the scale, calibrate to zero, and pour in equal parts resin and hardener. When I am done, I let the remaining resin resin cure in the cup, pop it out and throw it away. Voila! The silicone cup is clean for the next resin project.

3AfterResinMixinginSilicone Easy Cleanup 2

I used real 24 K gold leaf for one pair of shells and fine silver foil for the inside of the second pair. I attached the leaf with sizing and coated the shells with Pebeo varnish. I laid the shells on an old silicone pot holder to dry and sanded off any blobs before I applied the leaf.

And here are the finished earrings: gold filled wire for one pair and sterling wires for the pair with the silver leaf undersides. The earrings are extremely light and a lot more durable because of the resin coating.

Earrings

Recycling Ideas From My Workshop

By: ornamento.blog October 10, 2013October 7, 2013

Art, art, creativity, crafts, inspiration, Materials, recycled art, recycling, repurposing, Resin JewelryArt, creativity, inspiration, recycling, repurposingLeave a Comment

My friends call me “thrifty.” Maybe my penchant for reusing things comes from having parents who lived during the Great Depression and were always trying to out do one another with stories of how poor they were. My father recalled having to eat chicken skin, chicken fat and gristle at dinner because his mother “paid for that too.” Little did they know that with some imagination, some secret ingredients and a whole lotta cooking fat, they could have made the first chicken nuggets and ended that Great Depression at least as far as they were concerned. But I digress. (Why do I always do that?) Here are some examples of how I’ve been recycling.

Unraveling Sweater

I bought this Man’s size large Shetland wool sweater at a thrift ship for $5.99 so I could take it apart and reuse the wool.

Unaveled Yarn

Taking a sweater apart can be tedious but who doesn’t love a challenge?

Ball

One big ball of yard and lots of sweater left to unravel.

316 rods

I wanted some fatter lamp working mandrels. These are about 5 mm. I got them from a discontinued Ikea storage cart. I think they are aluminum but they work fine although not as well as steel.

Cheerios

Now I can make beads that look like Cheerios!

Earring1

I had to stop eating cheese because of a medical problem and had no trouble finding a new role for the cheese grater.

Earring2

Cheese graters hold lots of earrings. You could blast it with a coat of spray paint (minus the earrings of course) to give it a new look. Make sure the holes don’t get clogged though.

Here’s a silicone mat with little fingery things meant to be used for drying crystal wine glasses. I got mine on sale for about $5.00.

They’re a great tool for coating small items with resin . Place your cabochon or what have you on the mat and pour. The excess resin runs into the mat and when it cures, simply pop it off! Here’s a link to a similar mat that Amazon sells. You could probably find a better deal or snatch one up at a yard sale.

Here’s a good video on sweater deconstruction and yarn harvesting.

Resin and Bezels

I have been practicing soldering and trying new projects including backless bezels and prongs. All the pieces below are made from recycled metal.

I poured the resin into the bezel after completing the bezel. I put packing tape on the back to keep the resin from seeping out. The color comes from alcohol ink. I put in a tiny bit and carefully swirled it with a tooth pick so as not to make more air bubbles. After pouring a layer of resin, I put in another tiny drop and allowed it to spread without swirling. I also put in some glitter and metal leaf to see what it would do.

The back. I had a hard time cleaning the metal as you can see. Next time it will go in the tumbler with the stainless steel shot!

I didn’t like the way the top turned out, so I sanded it and poured it again. I think the dome is a little too high, but now the top has no dings.

The circular pieces of metal are scraps left after I trimmed a thin piece of metal with tin snips. The blue comes from blue pulver powder. Pearlex would work, too.

There are obvious air bubbles in the resin, but I didn’t try to coax them out. I think they give the pendant an aquatic feel. I also floated some metal leaf in the resin.

My first attempt at prongs using Joanna Gollberg’s article “Fresh Prongs” in the July 2011 issue of Art Jewelry as a guide. No binding wire needed! Check out Gollberg’s book, Making Metal Jewelry for more great ideas.

I poured the resin cube in a plastic pill organizer. They make great resin molds; the cured cubes just slip out and the surface on the top and sides are nice and shiny. I probably poured resin in the back before unmolding because the resin will shrink and dip a bit in the curing.

The prongs need to be higher, but they hold the cube securely. I don’t think the resin cube is spectacular enough to make this a memorable necklace, but I wanted to try making a prong setting before attempting to make five or six more and using them and resin cubes to make a bracelet. I think that would look interesting.

Take a look at Susan Lenart Kazmer’s DVD Exploring Resin to learn some interesting resin techniques including how to cast resin in an open bezel.

Painterly Polymer Necklace

I had a lot of color swatches and scraps after I completed the pattern and color sample exercises from Polymer Clay Color Inspirations.

Pattern Samples Bracelet

I layered them onto a 1/8″ sheet of clay and rolled them through the pasta machine to see how they would look as I rolled them thinner and thinner. The well-leached clay crumbled in interesting patterns. The fresher clay spread in a manner similar to what you see in Maggie Maggio’s Watercolor Technique. I continued laminating clay (see the transparent layers), noted where the most interesting patterns were and cut out pods. After baking, I put the pods in polymer clay bezels, baked again, drilled and strung on buna cord with o rings and polymer tube beads. It’s difficult to see in the photographs, but I put a layer of Envirotex Lite on top of the colored part of the pods. The necklace has a matte finish and a bunch of tiny dings that, in this case at least, I think adds to its appearance.

I plan to play around with this technique and will post any interesting results.

Resin Experiments

By: ornamento.blog May 20, 2010May 21, 2010

Art, art, creativity, crafts, inspiration, Design, Epoxy Resin, jewelry, Resin Jewelry, Silicone MoldsArt, crafts, creativity, inspiration, mixed media, Resub Jewelry1 Comment

I wanted to see what alcohol inks, metal leaf, glitter and bits of metal and glass would do when I suspended them in epoxy resin. I got some interesting results! I used Envirotex Lite and Easy Cast brand resin, and poured in layers to see what effects I could get. I made the squares in a plastic pill organizer. I didn’t have to use bead release; I just tapped the edge of the box when the resin was cured and the blocks slid out.

I made my own molds for the bracelets using 100 percent silicone caulk, glycerin and noise putty I found at the dollar store. You can get a general idea of how to make these molds from this article on the Village Garden Website.

If you’re looking for more in-depth information on working with resin, I recommend Resin Jewelry by Kathy Murphy.

Five Pendants for Five Women

By: ornamento.blog March 24, 2010March 20, 2010

Art, Nags Head, Personal History, repurposing, Resin Jewelry, Wire WorkingArt, creativity, inspiration, mixed media, repurposingLeave a Comment

Last year, I wrote about Shari’s rainbow. The year before that, I wrote about a trip to Nag’s Head, North Carolina and the shells I found there.

I didn’t know what to do with the shells, so I decided to wait until they talked to me. I only knew I wanted to do something in Shari’s memory. A few weeks ago, I made these pendants for five women: Leigh, Robin, Sandeye, Colleen and me. I wanted to make something that would remind us of the ocean and the last days we spent with Shari. Lapis was Shari s favorite stone, so I wired a small lapis bead onto each clasp.