as our guest blogger...
Hi it's Carmen today! Although I have been working with resin for about 10 years, I had never used any ETI products before so I was delighted for the opportunity to create a project using EasyCast Clear Casting Epoxy Resin. I thought I'd do a take on a stained glass window by creating a series of translucent charms which can be hung wherever you want a splash of color.
I started by spraying my molds with Mold Release. Follow the directions on the bottle. (I didn't and I'll show you what happened in a bit.)
Following the directions on the package, I measured equal amounts of resin and hardener into a cup and then stirred for two minutes. Then I poured the liquid into a fresh cup and stirred another two minutes with a new stir stick. This double cup system is a great way to make sure that the resin is mixed really well.
I knew I wanted to work with different colors so I poured the resin into little one ounce cups then added Transparent Dye for each different color and stirred.
Have you ever used one of those little wooden honey tools to serve honey out of a little pot? You dribble the honey from the tool onto your toast. That's how I filled the molds. The shapes were too small and too close together to try to pour the resin straight out of the cups so I used the stir sticks to dribble the resin into each mold cavity.
Once the molds were filled, I stacked baking sheets over them with little cups as spacers and covered the entire stack with a clean lint-free cloth to keep the dust out.
After 24 hours, I popped the cured pieces out of the molds. Rather I should say "I tried to pop" because here's an example of what happens when you don't follow the directions on the mold release bottle. I failed to do a nice even coat on the alphabet mold and most of the letters stuck. My crafty heart was sad but only for a minute because the other mold released easily and it was time to sand! (The instructions also say that candy molds are generally not usable even with a good coat of mold release.)
I took a piece of Wet/Dry 400 grit sandpaper and put it on one of my indispensable baking sheets. Then with a little bit of water I sanded each shape to flatten out the backs. ****Tip for easy cleanup: Wipe all the ground resin from the sandpaper with a wet paper towel and then toss the towel in the trash. Nice and clean!
It was so easy to drill holes in the EasyCast pieces! I used a 2mm drill bit on my high speed drill and was done in minutes.
The last step was to string the pieces together with clear fishing line.
That's it! I love how the resin looks like thick pieces of glass. The EasyCast has such clarity and I didn't have to fight away bubbles which has always been a problem for me with other brands. No bubbles here!
Try your own spin on this project by casting different shapes in your favorite colors. It's such a fun way to bring splashes of color into your home. Enjoy!!!Labels: Carmen Flores Tanis, EasyCast, ETI, Home Decor