It's Tuesday - How about a Tutorial??? Let's Make an AMAZING Clear Cast Resin Bowl

What I love about working with Amazing Crafting Products is the challenge to create something new. After I successfully made the hydrangea leaf dish, I knew I could only do bigger and better! My project is inspired from my love of hand blown glass demonstrations I always see at local fairs here in southern California.

I hope you will enjoy what I have created. 

I used the following:
Amazing Mold Putty
Amazing Clear Cast Resin
Alumilite Dye - Red, Yellow and Blue
1 small jar, 1 large jar, bamboo skewers,  a marker, non stick craft mat, cups and sticks for mixing, paper towels, dremel tool and clear acrylic sealer.

Rummage through your clean empty jars until you find one that might fit inside the other with room to spare. Turn them upside down and with one jar at a time, mix equal amounts of the white and yellow Amazing Mold Putty until one uniform color of yellow, and no white streaks appear. Make a pancake of the putty and working quickly, drape over the bottom of jar one. Form it in shape, working out any air pockets. Repeat process for jar two. Leave jars to set about 20 minutes.

Once firm, carefully pry off. You will notice some imperfections on the inside of the large mold and on the outside of the small mold. Mix some more putty and fix these issues. Let set before you go onto the next step.

Place your smaller mold inside the larger one, holding it so the bottoms and sides don't touch. This will give you a idea where to place the skewers. Carefully push the skewers through the molds, twisting as you go. push through the smaller mold as shown. If you make a mistake, just pull out and the hole will seal up. Keep your skewers as close to the top as possible. Break off pieces of the skewers to use on the sides (as shown) to act as reinforcements. You want to make sure the bottom and sides are not touching. The sticks keeps the inner mold from tipping and stabilizes everything so you can pour the resin easily.

Make a pancake or two of the Amazing Mold Putty, but before it has a chance to set, "stamp" it with the bottom of a marker. Half way through the set process, stamp again to 'open' up those holes.

3 clear mixing cups come with the Amazing Clear Cast Resin. I used one for each color. I poured resin "A" up to the 1/2 Tsp mark and resin "B" to the 1 Tsp mark. I mixed thoroughly with the provided popsicle stick and added a few drops of my choice of Alumilite dye. I poured directly from the mixing cup into the molds by way of 'dripping', wiping drips of the cup with a paper towel as I worked. Any leftovers were dripped into button molds I keep on hand when working with resin.

Usually Amazing Clear Cast Resin takes 24 hours to set, but since I knew they would continue to set inside the main mold, I popped them out after 8 hours. 

Now I knew those small measuring  cups provided were not going to work with the size of my bowl mold, so I put two clear plastic cups inside each other. I poured in 2 oz of tap water into the inside cup and marked the outside of the second cup with a permanent pen. I added another 2 oz of water and marked the outside cup again. I removed the inside cup with water and now had a dry measuring cup for resin.

I poured part "A" of the Amazing Clear Cast Resin to the 2oz line, and part "B" to the 4 oz line. I mixed thoroughly until those swirls you see were gone, scraping the sides and bottom as I mixed.

I then poured some resin into my mold, tipping the mold to make sure the bottom was filled. Working in layers, I dropped in my color pieces, pushing them in with a popsicle stick, while pouring in the resin, careful not to get any near the skewers. I placed the filled mold in a spot out of harms way, with a stick under one part of the mold to keep it level as it cured over night.

In the morning I carefully removed the skewers and resin bowl from the mold. The edges were sharp so I cut some off with nonstick scissors and smoothed off some rough edges with my craft dremel.

 

I placed the bowl on a craft mat and sprayed it with acrylic sealer, inside and out.

 

Now I have a piece of art for myself! 

 

I can use it alone, to hold treasures or even add a

battery operated candle to set the mood at night. :)

I love how the colors glow when held up to the sunlight!

What do you think?

Thanks for coming by, I hope you have enjoyed my craft. To see more of my creations, please visit my blog "Faerie Dust Dreams" by clicking HERE.

~ Michelle Frae Cummings