Ice Resin 101 by Susan M. Walls

Hello everyone! Today I am doing a follow up from Ursula's post about her art belt buckle. Very cool by the way...I love the stamping and the color!

I thought I would go back to basics and show you how Ice Resin is the easiest. Also I'll throw in some tips to make Ursula's next resin project a breeze ;)

Let's begin with my desk and what it looks like when I'm in resin mode.

You can see all the things I have all over...but they all come in necessary. Well, almost all. This shot is actually at the end of a pour but this is the reality at the beginning too.

Tip #1: You will notice that all, most, of my things are on a tray. I always work on a tray or inside a cardboard box or something that I can move without disturbing the resin. Line your tray with a silicone mat or a garbage bag, resin won't stick to a garbage bag, then place youe pieces, and pour. Then if you need the table space you just pick up the whole thing and move it.

Tip #2: You can see the two bowls at either side of the tray? Those are filled with rice. They make the perfect beds for any bezel...or belt buckle...any piece that might have an uneven bottom. You just nestle them into the rice until they lay flat and your resin will also be even!

Tip #3: Cover everything!! Once poured resin attracts dust like nobodys business!

We will start with those lovely Ice Resin bottles on the right pouring equal amounts from each bottle, resin and hardener, into a little medicine cup.

You can see on the side there are two marks for the levels of the resin. I find that the measurements that are embossed on the cup completely disappear when you pour in liquid so I use the closest Sharpie marker and remedy the situation.

Using a wooden craft stick you will stir this for 2 minutes. At the end of that time your Ice will be perfectly clear and all mixed together.

Set it down and let it rest for 5 minutes. During this time all the bubbles, if there are any, will rise to the top. They either dissipate on their own or you can do this...

The easiest way to remove bubbles is to blow gently through a straw...you will be amazed that all the bubbles will just disappear.

You can see the bubbles in this pic alongside my prepared bezels.

Here are a few more prepared bezels. You can use a myriad of materials in your bezels. the top has an acrylic painted background with an actual gear, glued in place, plus some typed words on paper. The center pieces are also a mix of paint and paper. The bottom was painted several times then the paper was added as I poured the resin.

Here's another way to keep things level. I recycled this box and by cutting some strip out of it I made the perfect spots to tuck in my ring shanks and keep the bezel part level. 

Get resin on the box? Toss it out!

Tip #4: If you've overpoured or dumped your project over and then let it cure before getting the resin off places you don't really want it to be. DON'T PANIC! There are several things you can do. Use scissors and cut off the pieces hanging off. Pick at the resin that's stuck with your fingernails until it lifts (this only works while it's still soft..at least for me). In times of desperation I reach for the rubbing alcohol. Dip a Qtip in it and saturate the unwanted resin areas being careful not to rub it all over the top of your piece. Now you may have to do this more than once but I find it makes the resin brittle and then it will come off. 

If none of those options work then PANIC!

Pour your resin into your bezels and wait for the magic to happen! In 24 hours you have a soft cure. That means the resin fells a bit soft but you can touch it and cut or peel off any resin that pours over your bezel. Three days and you have a hard cure meaning you can now place a piece in a box or bag, wear it without worry of damaging the surface or sell your gorgeous piece!

Here's a few finished pieces so you can see how beautiful Ice Resin is...

Hearts! Hearts with 1955 dictionary words embedded into the resin. What word sums up your personality?

There's that gear again! I literally used a little ModPodge to secure the gear where I wanted it and poured resin over it. There's a bit of mica inclusion laying behind it...but that's another post!

Last but not least we will visit some science fiction. My favorite! The bezels here are all prepped with the paper clip art, sealed with ModPodge, and then resin. 

Way too much fun!

Are you tempted to try it? I like that rubber shape that Ursula used and then pulled off from around the resin. I'm going to steal that idea!

Until next time,

Susan

You can find us all at our FB page: 

Cre8ive Klatch

You can find me at Susan's Art Circus

and also at the Cre8ive Circus where you can also purchase all the supplies to do some resin projects

or at my jewelry shop Charming Trinkets for finished pieces in wacky themes!

Link Sharing by Susan Walls

Hello everyone!

I've been a bit lax on the schedule here because of busy times in my studio but wanted to jump in and do some link sharing today. Maybe give you some new things to read and learn about for the weekend.

So...I do a lot of cruising around the internet when I have a chance. There are many artists, writers, cooks, and general life enthusiasts and, in my opinion, too little time in the day. The following links are the tiniest portion of my list but in the top 20 of the sites I go back to over and over again.

Food. Is there anyone who doesn't like food? Food has been a huge focus in my life for a very long time now. Over the last 2 to 3 years our family has rid itself of all processed food stuffs and I have taken on eating vegan whenever I can swing it. but it wasn't until I found Isa Chandra Moskowitz and her vegan cookbooks that I really figured out how good vegan cooking could be. You might be a vegan skeptic but all you have to do is try one recipe. I've bought almost all her books and every single one is great!

Her site is: Post Punk Kitchen and she is the bomb!

This week one of my favorite business women has been holding her fifth free entrepreneur video summit. She is the writer of "The Right Brain Business Plan" and Building Your Business the Right-Brain Way ". If you are creative and want to start or build on your business...this is the gal!

Her name is Jennifer Lee and her site is: Right Brain Business Plan and the video summit, which I highly recommend, is on through the 20th of March.

March is National Craft Month and the craftiest, amongst other things, gal I know is Jennifer Priest. She has some fabulous projects and tips on her site plus her family also crafts with her.

Check out her work at: Hydrangea Hippo and for those of us in creative business wanting to learn more about social media she is also an expert. 

Check out her other site, Rainmaker Media Works plus her groups on FB.

Last but certainly not least is the wonderful artist and person Tracy Verdugo. One of the reasons I'm kind of in a creative fog, a good one, is that I just came home from 5 days with her immersing myself in "Paint Mojo." I had never taken a retreat like this for this length of time and it was hugely inspiring! Tracy is warm and intuitive truly a guiding spirit through all the artistic techniques shared through the class.

If you aren't familiar with Tracy I suggest you hop on over to her site: Tracy Verdugo or her blog and start learning!! 

Those links should get you started! Tune in next week when my friend Ursula tries out Ice Resin and I do a follow up Resin 101 post...should be good fun!

Until then you can find me: 

on FB at Susan's Charming Trinkets

or my website Susan's Art Circus

January is National Organization Month!

Did you realize that this is National Organization Month?

It seems normal to re-organize during this month of renewal (also our gr8full theme on Instagram for the month)

We wanted to share with you some of our organizing tips and how we feel about the topic in general.

Here goes:

Laney from Sugar Plum Patchwork says...

My room is quite small - only about 9' x 9'. I have a large table that serves as my my sewing and cutting area. I have to make use of all the space so I keep rolling drawers beneath the table. I keep sewing notions, ribbons, trims and thread in the top drawer and have fabric scraps organized by warm and cool colors in the other drawers.

From Kelly Campbell Corso and her Bird in a Tree Creations

Organization: my friend and my enemy!

This seems to be a concept that I am constantly fighting to integrate into my life, for my studio and my house! I have come to accept that my brain doesn't totally work that way so I do what I can. I picked one thing in my studio that is the most organized and that is this shelf. It is great to keep all my glitters, liquid pearls and alcohol inks. Being a fiber/mixed media artist can be a bit overwhelming with the amount of supplies one can collect over time. I like this shelf because I can see everything that is available instead of searching. Hope this is a helpful hint for anyone out there in supply overload! 

P.S. I was going to crop the picture but didn't because you can see part of my inspiration board, which could be a whole other blog post!

From Lori Leissner of Leissnerart

My favorite organizing tools in the studio are these vintage crates. I have two soda crates and another wooden box. My paints, mediums, and all kinds of other arty things fit great and look so pretty (when I can actually get the stuff back in there).

Lori also has a great post about her word for the year, reclaim, and her closet.

Reclaiming and My Closet

 Michelle Reynolds from Shells in the Bush shares...

For me, Susan of Susan's Art Circus, my re-organization or new year renewal starts with every day spots in the house.

The rest of my kitchen re-organization post is here.

In my studio one of my most prized possessions for organizing is this tool caddy. It's almost as tall as I am and it holds my rubber stamp collection. Each drawer is labeled with a theme so I can find, most of the time, what I'm looking for.

How are you re-organizing for the new year? Do you continue to find spots that need some TLC through the month? What area is your priority?

Let us know over at our Facebook group or here in the comments!

Until next time!!

Arc Planner: Another Idea by Susan Walls

The first few days of January always make me want to clean up for the new year. Try to start with as much of a clean slate as I can muster. Drawers need cleaning, kids clothing needs culling, floors need deep cleaning, and the mind needs to sweep itself clean for 2015.

Being that I love to cook I collect recipes, and cookbooks, from all over the place. Clippings and page ripping are all a part of collecting but where do they go so you can refer to them? Yep...you guessed it. They go everywhere. Frankly I'm sick of it. I recently opened a cabinet and recipe clippings fell like confetti to the ground. 

My solution? An Arc planner, washi tape, and a couple hours of time. (okay, maybe longer...)

          

I love this disc system!!

First I threw out recipes I KNEW I would never use. Since I'm eating vegan most of the time I knew that anything meat centered or something I couldn't easily manipulate into a vegetarian or a vegan meal was out. Second anything that seemed too complicated...no time for those.

      

With that done I fancied up the blank pages with Washi taped edges. Not only do I like that it makes the book more colorful but it makes the edges thicker and easier to turn.

         

Then I could use the Washi tape to tape in the clippings or use my Arc punch to add magazine pages directly into the book.

          

Also imperative for a book you'll use for cooking is that the pages are covered in something that you can clean or wipe off. My solution was to punch Arc holes into plastic cover pages that I already had on hand. I've also kept a large Ziploc bag with my cookbooks so I could slide it over the page I was using...or you could run a piece of plastic wrap over your book or page. Sometimes there isn't anything handy so my pages are marked with years of splatter from using the favorites over and over. Oh well...

          

Now I'm not going to lie and say this didn't take me some time. It did. But the results are a great book full of recipes I will try to use plus they are all in one place! It feels like it's ready for another year! A New year!

       To share your Arc planner please come by and join the conversation in our Facebook group:

Cre8ive Klatch

Other places you can find Susan:

My website

My blog

My Etsy Shop for Jewelry

My Etsy Shop for art Supplies

Instagram/Twitter @susanmwb

Pinterest

Google+SusanWallsBeverly

Ice Resin Play: Darned Bubbles! From Susan's Art Circus

Hello all!

This is Susan from Susan’s Art Circus. As well as being a painter, mixed media artist and a dozen other things, I am the resident jewelry maker in the Klatch group.  After, and before, being an Ice Resin© design team member in 2012-13 I have played in resin. I love it! And I've started a series of posts over on my own blog with that obsession in mind. It’s all about playing with and experimenting with Ice Resin© and  today I bring an installment of that series over here all about molding putty…

Now there are two posts that came before this one today and you can find them here:

Ice Resin Play: Molding Putty Part 1

Ice Resin Play: Molding Putty Part 2

But today I want to talk about a couple different brands of silicone molding putty. Two brands and two things in particular…time and bubbles.

My favorite molding putty is, of course, from Susan Lenart Kazmer. (if you aren't familiar with her work go see...it's extraordinary!)

You can mix it together in equal parts and use it immediately after pulling out the item you’re molding. This means you can mix, mold, wait about 15 minutes, pull your mold off of your item, and pour resin right into the cavity. This is what it looks like after the resin has a 24 hour cure molding with Susan’s product.

You can see it’s clear, detailed, and beautiful. First try. This took approximately 24 hours total with the bulk of that going towards allowing the resin to cure hard enough to remove the mold. You could manage it in 12 hours if you're really in a hurry.

Now let me show you how another brand, which I won’t name, works if used the same way. I will preface my statements with the fact that the purple product works very similarly to the yellow. It mixes the same, takes the same time period to be able to pull out your molded item, and will mold with great details. But there’s a huge time difference in order to get a clear cast which, for me when I’m busy producing for shows or my shop, means I’m losing money with the time it takes. There is only one of me so every minute counts.

Here is a new mold made with the purple product that has had the resin poured into it.  Both making the mold and pouring the resin happened within about an hour’s time.

Notice anything? Here is another picture taken about 45 minutes after pouring the resin into the mold.

 Notice now? The type of material that this molding putty is made from de-gasses into the resin causing multiple bubbles to form. 

Sometimes this might be a happy accident but, for me, this means I have to make another piece. The only way to insure this doesn't happen is to let the mold cure for 24 hours before pouring your first resin into it. And sometimes even that doesn't stop it completely and you will still get more bubbles than you want or need.

So, for me, I use the yellow/white Ice Resin brand of molding putty and get some wonderful cast pieces in a time frame that I can manage.

No it's not a sheep or a doll...it's a piggie! 

If you try out any of these techniques please come join our group Facebook page at: 

Cre8ive Klatch

...and let's chat!

Until next time,

Susan