Weighty

 I have recently started following Buried Diamond.  I like the sewing projects a lot, but it was the post about making pattern weights with resin that really set something off within me.  I have been interested in resin for years, but nothing quite made me want to finally acquire the necessary materials like seeing those pattern weights.

And it just happened that JoAnn had a big blowout weekend sale that did not include resin but did include a 60% off coupon that I could use on that full-price resin, along with a 40% off coupon I could use for a basic 4-cavity round soap mold (and another 40% off coupon put toward some moldmaking compound so I can make my own designs for jewelry use in the unknown future.)

And so I jumped right into my first resin project ever, with four layers each and loads of research into when the best time to add the embeds and the glitter and the next layers, and it being a lovely day so I could open EVERY window and put a window fan set to exhaust in the nearest one.

I demolded them the next morning and here they are

The items I used in each of these don't have any emotional resonance like those in the inspiration projects, but that's more a function of how my brain works than any history I might have with each of the pieces inside.  I do plan to use some things I've had forever in future pattern weights, but that's more so I can finally use them, after hanging on to them for so long--in some cases, easily 40 years, because I was That Kind of kid.

That said, even though this stamped metal poodle could have been something from my childhood, it's a much more recent acquisition.  The confetti is even newer, since my interest in making something like this finally seemed like a good enough excuse to buy a bag of random sequins/confetti.  I've had bags of random sequins like this in the past, but I always got rid of them, because, no matter how much I liked looking at them, I could never think of anything to do with them.

 

 

And so of course this one was just going all-out with sequins, because I could.  Also, when I was a kid, every summer the county fairground would host a Rock Swap, and I'd always go and admire all the pretty polished rocks and crystals and such (I do still have a few that I bought back then), and I also remember one booth one year that had what I now know were things made from resin, filled with sequins and glitter.  So!  (Also, the glitter is something I picked up in a thrift store, and it's so vintage that the individual glitters aren't hexagonal like most modern craft glitter.)

This green chicken is also thrifted, back in the days when the local thrift store chain would have tables full of odds and ends of small toys, all you could fit into a bag for $3.  I got some amazing deals that way, and also got a lot of random little things like this chicken and the glow-in-the-dark stars behind it.  The pastel heart sequins were a gift.  And the larger pink heart...yeah.  It's actually a faceted plastic "jewel," and there's an optical property happening here that I had not encountered any warnings about in my research on embedding things.  It's called "refractive index" and it's basically "when the clear plastic of the resin surrounds the clear plastic of the 'jewel,' they will merge into one large piece of clear plastic and the physics of light entering the facets from air will be eliminated, leaving you with the appearance of a flat formless shape if you didn't do something as foolish as put a completely transparent item in the resin, in which case say goodbye because you will never be able to see it again."

I still like it, despite that and other issues.

And then there's this one...  Since I cast these all at once, I made the faceted plastic jewel mistake all at once as well.  And I suspected that the little black plastic bats might be hard to see against the dark purple glitter background, but I tried it anyway, just in case I was wrong.  I was not wrong.  But I do love those transparent iridescent stars (gift from the same person who gave me the pastel hearts)  against the dark glitter.  So, in terms of resin crafting, this is Lessons Learned, and, in terms of making a pattern weight, this will work just fine.

There are other mistakes and issues with most of these, but not enough to worry about, especially since this was my first time doing anything with resin ever.  I may get better in the future, but it's OK if I stay at this level, too.  I can't imagine doing this a lot--it's definitely going to be one of those "in just the right mood to work on it" kind of hobbies.

I glued felt to the bottoms of all of these so they will, I hope, be kind to pattern tissue.  They weigh 1½-2oz each, which seems like it should be enough to hold the patterns down, especially once I make more.

Whenever that is.