The more tedious part of jewelry making
Published On: 11-25-2011 10:16pm
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Category: The Nitty Gritty
Before I left on vacation I did a couple pours of Ice Resin so the pieces could cure while I was gone. I had a mixed bag of items I was working on. I was doing some finishing work on some pieces that had been put off while I was doing some arts & crafts shows, I was making some new pendant pieces, and I was doing some experimentation on what I hoped would be a new line of items. I had mixed results but I'll get to that later. To make life exciting, I managed to drop most of a batch of ice resin right in the middle of the projects I was working on. I got it cleaned up as best as I could but I will have to do some additional sanding on a few pieces.
I should back-up a bit here and tell you that my "work space" is 1/4 of a large dining room table (which is at least 1/4 less than I had when I was living by myself - I now live with a married couple I'm friends with. Often I need to condense this down to about 2 feet by a foot and a half (or less) when we are hosting game nights. I have a work mat and a full spectrum light that mostly live there. The work mat is basically a kind of shelf liner that has no sticky backing but has a texture that helps to keep the beads from rolling around too much. Then I use a beading mat or bead board on top of that. I also occasionally appropriate borrow a lovely fold-out gaming table the father of one of my roommates made for him (similar to a wood TV tray but a bit wider and longer). I use it for when I need to let Ice Resin cure - which must be done in my bedroom because I also share space with my roommates cats. They are most put-out that I don't let them in my room, but I need at least one relatively cat hair free place in which my resin pieces can cure (among other things). My portable ice resin work surfaces, currently, are pieces of cardboard on which I tape pieces of white garbage bag which the resin won't bond to. Eventually I want to replace these with Silicone cutting board surfaces that won't wear out, bend or otherwise get uneven. Until then, these have been working okay. Having a surface on which to specifically do Ice Resin work is important both because it makes it easier to move the work around (I do the pouring in the dining room) and makes the accident I had less fraught. The accident is also why I have a container of baby wipes (I really love dollar stores for these) near by when I'm working. I was able to get it tidied up before anything could spill over the sides of my work board and I did what I could to clean my pieces up before they cured - which was a bit tricky with many of them already being full of resin at the same time. I might have been able to avoid having to do touch-ups if I'd cleaned them again after they had set for an hour, but I was doing the pour right before leaving and was on a time schedule. Yeah - not the best idea.
So, today was assembly day. It's time to string things up, figure out lengths, pricing, naming my pieces (and otherwise documenting them) and then photograph them. With many of the Ice Resin pieces I put them on chain, leather cord, satin cord, or silicone cord - depending on the style. Part of the reason for this is customer driven - some just prefer chains or cord to beaded necklaces. With both the resin and some of the bead woven pendants I make, the pendant is where all the detain is and where I want to focus to be. In addition, keeping some of my items relatively simple affords me time to do some more complicated bead work while still having a good selection of items to sell in a variety of price ranges. For some of the latest batch I did some experimenting with layering.
I also made a few things for myself. Crazy, huh? I'm not sure why I keep feeling guilty when I do this...
Putting on the chain/cord, the findings, and doing documentation takes longer than you ever think it should. Now I'm finally ready to take product pictures and it's getting close to dinner time. **sigh** Then there's all the time it takes to process the photos once the pictures are taken. My Photoshop skills are not so mighty. I'm learning and improving and do okay but, again, this takes longer than I would like. Part of this is because I'm doing most of the work on my HP PC computer that time forgot. It was a refurbished model when I got it 7-8 years ago. There's really nothing I can do to make it faster at this point. I have a somewhat newer Mac to use but I still need to install the software on it and I'm not as familiar with it as the PC. Not to mention, we all know that software installation takes 5X longer than you think it should.
After all the assembly and documentation is done - it will be time to post the items to my account and do write-ups for them. All these things seem to take 2-4 days (or longer_ for a batch of items (partially because I can only stare at a computer screen for so long before my eyes go wonky). I keep finding myself staring longingly at my beading books with all those juicy new things to try and having to remind myself to keep on --- oh shiny!!
Right then.
One of my new experiments this time were trying the resin in some sugar skull candy molds I had. I've used starfish and seahorse candy molds previously. They were only good for 2 pours and then were trashed. Mold release spray doesn't really seem to work so well in these. I use silicone molds when I can but they aren't always available in the shapes I want so I've been experimenting with candy molds. I did a 2-layer pour with the Sugar Skulls. I also experimented with glitter. On a couple I dropped a bunch of glitter in right away. With another two I put a little in after it had set for a bit. and for a couple I put the glitter in the 2nd layer only. For molds with a lot of detail, waiting until they set a bit (so the resin is thicker and the glitter doesn't sink to the bottom) and putting the glitter in the 2nd layer look the best. Unfortunately, the molds didn't survive the process. I literally had to tear them off of the resin skulls piece by piece. Given that the mold set cost me $10 and I'm not sure any of my experiments are worth trying to sell, that was a bit painful. I may see if I can get another set and make my own silicone mold from them.
I also did a bit of experimentation with very small plastic reptiles in silicone. They are a bit too Archie Mcphee for me I think and I'm not planning to do more at this time. I'm not quite sure yet what I'll do with the ones I have.
I had some silicone candy molds that I played around with as well. The resin comes out matte from them but a top coat of resin shines them right up. The set I have are various snowflake designs. I was hoping they would look more flower like with other colors but... not so much. With the holidays coming I think I will try more standard colors with them and make them into little ornaments and necklaces.
I have some ideas for more glitter experiments and am working on some more layered pendants & lockets in a variety of designs. Themes include Halloween, Alice in Wonderland, and Steampunk. I have procured silicone molds of both a small skeleton goddess & tiny bat that I will be experimenting with as well. For now, though, it's time to quit being avoidant and whiny and finish up what I need to do with my current items so I can get them listed already! Expect to see me list some more of my upcycled items as well.
