#Cre8time Beachcombing... Preserve Seaside Keepsakes in Miniature Tide Pools by Lara Hjorthoy

Hi Artists! Today's "how-to" is inspired by an artist I ran into recently. He creates these stunning glass and concrete sculptures, where the glass looks like water... just gorgeous! I wanted to try my hand at what resin could do!

So for today, I'm making Personal Tidal Pools!

As a Girl from Vancouver, BC, the West Coast of Canada sports some seriously beautiful beaches, and my goal for these little pools was to capture some of that!

So to start off with I found myself a fairly generic silicone muffin "tin". I got one from a local cooking shop as the ones I found in the thrift store looked a little worse for wear, and I really wanted a smooth cast!

Next, Hubbs and I went to the beach!!! I collected handfuls of dry sand, handfuls of cool rocks, used shells and bits of interesting wood! 

   

When I got home, and before I went too far, I decided to sculpt some mini starfish and barnacles out of Sculpey, and then mold those with Amazing Mold Putty! Since they were so tiny, I just pressed the putty out wide and flat and in no time I had a great mold! Later I cast all these guys using Amazing Casting Resin and some glow in the dark powder!

I think it's important to explain the mistakes that happened – I would hate for anyone to think I hit pay dirt right off the bat!

So what I did, was mix up some of the sand I collected with acrylic polymer medium, and THAT I wouldn't do again. Main reason? I don't think the medium was a strong enough bond with the sand and eventually the resin, so it got flaky and fell apart in the end. ALSO, I didn't leave this step long enough -or- it might have been that my rocks were not completely dried out inside which may have introduced moisture back into the sand. Next time, if I go the sand route again, I will try something different. So even though my resin eventually set super fast, the sand didn't, which was the contributing factor to the whole, falling apart thing.

Anywho... I WAS successful eventually, so bare with me!

***here is a pic of the rocks, laid into the sand in the mold.***

I did let this stage set for 24 hours and when I touched the top it appeared hard and set, so I went ahead a mixed up the Amazing Clear Cast Resin. I wanted a slight tint to the resin, as I thought it might be a cooler look then simply just clear, and here is my second mistake! Using a drop of blue and two drops of fluorescent green into my resin part "A", the dye was SOOOO DARK!!!

Alumilite dyes are so powerful and such a very very little is actually needed! Lesson learned, so the top three in photo are the super dark dye, they didn't work – unless I was going for a tide pool at night. The two up front used the last of the dye in the container and I didn't add any more to it. It was a lovely light blue. Those were mostly successful!

After letting them set for another 24 hours, I finally removed them from the mold. The resin popped out beautifully. However the sand didn't set properly in these and kind of fell apart a bit. Bit of a bummer but left me thinking....

So my last try, I skipped the sand, used some flatter rocks to create a "bed" in the bottom of one mold, added some nice shaped and interesting colored rocks, some bits of wood, my glow in the dark casts of starfish and barnacles. Made sure when I poured the resin this time, I used a teeeeeeensy tiny amount of dye and poured.

After a day, here is the final result! A successful Personal Tide Pool – and it glows in the dark... so cool!!! The back two pictured are the not super successful ones from my first try. But they weren't terrible either, so they deserved a look!

Here is my final Tidal Pool – 

the one I would like to keep on making! 

How do you create a water effect?

I hope you enjoyed this How-To! Have a great week Friends.

Stay Inspired ~ Lara

Check out my website at www.larahjorthoy.com and YourToyCreation.etsy.com. You can follow my day to day creations at Facebook and Instagram, look for YourToy Creations!

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