Handling Casting Resin - A series of free tutorials

Hello All,

Here is a series of tutorials for using resin on paper jewellery. The resin is available with A1 Craft Supplies. You can contact them for purchasing the resin. Art'zire want to specially thank Richa Kapre of Rock, Paper and Scissor for her generous contribution to the knowledge in resin-handling.

My humble request to all users of resin: Resin handling is an exercise in patience. Hurrying the process with cause blotchy results. Please do read the instructions on your resin packaging carefully.

Part 1 - Preparation of surface for applying resin......

Very often, you are likely to encounter surfaces that have painted and drawn patterns on then. It is always better to cover the surface completely with a clear drying glue (like Fevicryl Fabric Glue, Camlin Crafty Glue or Faber Castell White Glue). Always allow for COMPLETE drying of the glue before you apply resin.

Part 2 - Mixing Resin

Mixing the resin is the most crucial of all steps in the handling of resin. Unfortunately, very small things can be the make-or-break factors while handling resin. This video shows how one can mix resin. The key is to be patient and work slowly.

Part 3 - Applying resin on Enclosed Surfaces

Resin has most commonly been used for 'filling' up enclosed surfaces to create a "cabochon" like effect. This effect needs resin to be 'filled' in spaces. Though it may sound trivial, these very bubbles (in extreme cases, many small or large bubbles) can bring about "fogginess" to the resin coating and lead to bad finishing.

Part 4 - Popping the Bubbles

No amount of handling carefully can ensure zero bubbles. Fortunately, Richa has worked very hard at developing techniques to dispel these little jewellery spoilers :)

Part 5 - Coating a 3D surface (e.g. a jhumka)

One of the most common question we've been asked so far is, can resin be used to coat quilled jewellery. We'll answer it with a very reserved yes. We don't really know if it can be used on all types of quilling jewellery but it can be used on quilled jhumkas. How? Watch :) [Information courtesy: Richa]

Part 6 - Cleaning a resin coated brush

Since application of resin to a 3D surface needs a brush to be used and one wouldn't want to lose the brush, cleaning of that brush is imperative. Here is the video for how you can clean the brush after using it for coating the 3D surface(s)

Part 7 - Getting "Concave" effect on an enclosed surface

Part 8 - Getting Concave effect on an unenclosed surface