Experimenting with UV Resin and Foil Flakes
Back in 2019, I took a class at my local community college from a renowned jewelry maker and instructor. It was a jewelry class, but not your typical jewelry class. Our projects included Apoxy Sculpt clay, two-part epoxy resin, and UV resin. I bought all the stuff, not a small investment, and had a lot of fun, a lot of trial and error, many failures and a few successes.
In 2020, my craft room converted into a home office when we were sent home during the pandemic. One thing about these projects is they take up a significant amount of space. They are also quite messy. I found myself not interested in investing the time and effort in the basic logistics of rearranging my space to create space to craft, then rearranging again to create space to work. I didn’t stop making jewelry, and I certainly didn’t stop making a mess, I just pivoted to projects less messy and easier to clean up and/or set aside. Eventually, I gave it all away.
Recently, I had been looking at ways to seal torch colored copper and came across several creators using UV resin. This technique seemed to reflect the light so much better than the glazes, glosses, and sprays I had been using, which often muddled the color. I blogged about that here: https://mieloabelo.com/how-to-seal-flame-colored-copper/
Using UV resin to seal copper rekindled my interest in the medium, and I have since purchased a mold (trying not to go crazy buying all the things), some foil flakes, and I discovered colored UV resin. Didn’t even know that was a thing! Color was one of the hardest hurdles using UV resin, so finding this was an answer to my hardest UV resin question!
I wish I had taken more photos or video of the process, but I was too excited to get started, I just dove in.
I did have a couple of other attempts that failed, these were the two I deemed salvageable. I was trying to mimic the look of dichroic glass, and while not exactly the same, the process was certainly a learning one and the results are not so bad!
I decided to make earrings. They have some flaws, quite visible in this finished photo, so I will not be listing them. I will be wearing them though!
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