Resin Crafts: The look of Metal with Resin

Last year I entered this fancy and non real Steampunk art world and since then I try to make a piece or two of Steampunk art when it's a right time and right mood. So when I got this " Little things that make life Big" stamp from Two Paper Divas Life's Little Sayings set I thought that it can perfectly
fit a new Steampunk project and this is how this piece was born (from the stamp).

I was looking for little things that I cherish in my life and that make it bigger and the first one was a bit of Wisdom. And who is the ultimate symbol of wisdom if not an Owl? So I looked for a big size owl in my craft stash and the only one I had was this metal old vintage mobile piece and I didn't want to waste it for a single project. That's how I grabbed my ETI products and from here everything was easy. I know it took me a couple of days to finish this project, but who said that art is as instant as my cup of coffee?

First I made the mold of my owl with ETI Easy Mold Silicone putty and left it to dry, as directed on the manufacturer's instructions.

Then I took the metal piece of my mold and you can see how detailed and perfect this mold is.

Then I made a try to add Ann Butler's Iridescents in Copper inside the mold and to add resin over the pigment.

Then I casted the owl with Easy Cast Clear casting epoxy over the Iridescents and let it dry for about 24 hours. The pigment worked fantastic with resin casting and I got this copper translucent owl to use over my piece.

Now I was looking for other life's little symbols and I thought I need wings. For me wings are an ultimate symbol of adventure (remember Icarus?), of freedom and of courage. When you spread your wings and fly nothing can stop you and even stars are not the limit. So do I have any wings to add to my piece? Again, the only wings I had were those metal Tim Holtz ones and I decided to repeat the previous step and to mold and to cast me the new ones. Those steps are not shown as this is exactly the same technique as the owl one. This time I added a mix of Ann Butler's Iridescents by Earth Safe Finishes and to make my wings kind of blue- silver ones.

So here is my finished project and I am going to explain much more about all other symbols and my work process.

Now it was a time to think about all other little things of a life. And I can even say that those parts were even "little" in cost: I found this kids' store where you can buy dozen of toy pieces for maybe $1 cost and used the foam cube as my art piece base. Let's say that black chalkboard DecoArt paint made it possible together with a couple of hours waiting time and my very black fingers.

The next one was to find a stand for my stamped over transparency sentiment. Remember? This is what this piece is all about. So I stamped it with black Surfacez Clearsnap ink and cut it to fit this kids' store magnifying glass. This glass (heat embossed with a mix of embossing powders and glitters) is another symbol of life's little things. We should pay attention to the very small things in our life and a bunch of them connected make this life a real thing.

The background Steampunk chipboard piece from Creative Embellishments was painted into black and then heat embossed all over.

I still had pieces and pieces and nothing was connected to a whole project. Then I thought about luck. Luck is another little thing you should have in your life to make it complete. So I added this plastic "silver" spoon and filled it with precious stones using another small mix of ETI Easy Cast Clear Casting Epoxy. I think we all know that to be born with a silver spoon is a kind of luck; not that I was born with it, but at least girl can dream…

I used a bit of Easy Cast to glue my stamped transparency over the magnifying glass too.

Some more $1 store things were added, such as pearls on the cube and I added a bunch of Prima flowers to add another little thing that makes our life big: flowers. As I already had some Easy Cast Resin mixed I worked fast and glued every single piece with this already mixed resin. It's just perfect clear glue with a long drying time )

As you can see on the final project I changed a color of my casted pieces by adding some paints and pigments and maybe it looks like a metal, but it is all ETI resin.