Bezel Week - Real Flowers and Paper Flowers!

Today I am presenting two of my favorite techniques, adding real and paper flowers to a bezel.

I am working with the brand new line of bezels that I announced in yesterdays blog post.  I'll be giving a set of these away this Friday!  Thank you John Bead!

For the real flowers I worked in these earring bezels.  They are very shallow, so I knew I would do only one resin pour.  My first step was to place some vintage paper into the bezel.  You can see the gel medium I used to protect this paper from the resin.  I covered the paper three times with the gel medium letting each layer dry (around 15 minutes per layer) between applications.  Then I added the tiny roses and brushed gel medium (you can use Mod Podge) over the roses three times as well. (Again, around 15 minutes per layer)

When everything was dry I poured a tiny amount of Envirotex Lite resin into each bezel covering the roses competely.  Now they are permanently protected. 

The next bezel was one I was really excited to work with.  This copper oval bezel is so beautiful.  It is very deep, so I prepared to do two resin pours.  First, I found a paper rose I wanted to place in the bezel.  This gave me an opportunity to show you a special technique that will save you so much time!

It is hard to cut an oval.  What I do is run a marker brush over the edge of my bezel. This turns the bezel into a temporary stamp.

 See!  I know exactly what to cut!

I placed the oval cutout into my bezel.  It fit perfectly!  As before, I brushed three layers of gel medium over this paper rose.  When all was dry, I poured about 1/8 of an inch of Envirotex Lite resin into the bezel.  I hope you can see that first layer of resin.  Then I waited until the resin cured. (48 hours)

Working on the resin surface is fun!  Now I added some paint, glitter and a few embellishments to the first resin layer.  When it was dry, I poured in my second and final layer of resin right to the brim.

Now my copper pendant looks multi-dimensional.  The additions I made after the first resin pour look like they are suspended in glass.  Do you like it?