Amazing Casting Products: #Cre8time meets #Recycling for AMAZING Resin Coasters... by Tracy Alden

Thursday, April 23

#Cre8time meets #Recycling for AMAZING Resin Coasters... by Tracy Alden

Hello! Tracy here with another Amazing Casting Products tutorial! Many of my craft and art projects normally have some aspect of recycling or reuse, such as using old deli containers for mold boxes or shrink plastic projects, newspaper for papier-mâché, paper scraps for miniatures, cardboard for backing or odd shaped mold boxes, and food containers to store small craft supplies.

Which brings me to my inspiration for this project: After a somewhat madcap baking spree I had several clean plastic icing containers perfect for reuse. I noticed the inside of the lids were slightly bigger than most common cups, had no pattern and had a great circle grove, so flipped over it could make a quick coaster mold!

Supplies:

Amazing Clear Cast Resin
Alumilite Dye - Black
Mold Release
Toothpicks
Stir Sticks
Glitter (any shape or size, the more random the mix the merrier!)
Scraps of paper, foil, cardboard or catalogs
Icing canister lids
Craft Scissors
Paint brush
StazOn Solvent Ink
Liquitex Gloss Varnish

I started with making sure the former icing canister lids were clean and lint free. I then sprayed a mold release on the lids to ensure the resin would come out easily once fully cured.

My first layer of Amazing Clear Cast Resin was a thin layer tinted with Black Alumilite Dye. I made sure the entire bottom of the lid was coated with resin.

Next I added some glitter to the black tinted resin layer, gold red and a homemade mix. The homemade mix comes from often spilling glitter but saving the glitter for later use. This is one of those times that a random glitter mix is perfect for a bit of simmer in the background!

I went through some of my scrap paper to find the perfect embellishments for the resin. Old catalogs, paper samples, leftovers from projects and salvaged pieces of paper are a perfect resource for wonderful snippets of color.

After embossing and texturing some of the paper I inked the paper scraps with the StazOn Solvent Ink to highlight and age the paper. At this point I picked the papers I wanted to use for this batch of coasters, saving the rest of the papers for my next set.

I then cut the different paper scraps into smaller pieces so that they would fit inside the molds. I sealed them with Liquitex Gloss Varnish coating the front and back of each piece and letting it dry.

Second thin layer of Amazing Clear Cast Resin was poured and carefully I floated some of the sealed papers on top of the resin. I let that cure until reaching a tacky set – about a few hours in warm weather before moving on to the next step.

The third layer I poured a little thicker than the last to give some visual depth between the layers of paper. I added some clean, used tin foil and more paper to this layer of resin. Once again I let the resin cure until reaching a tacky set before pouring the final thick layer of resin.

Once the final layer of resin was fulled cured I was able to remove the now complete coasters from their molds by carefully peeling the plastic lids from the resin.