This is going to be one hodge-modge-podge of a post. Chaotic and all over the place because I haven't been keeping up with my posts and I have a lot to update/share, lol 😅
At first I wasn't really going to post some of these things but as time moves forward, it's occurring to me that I'll be making posts about future projects and they'll have no context without these posted, so they're kind of necessary to post now.
A bit back one of the Youtubers I watch got some items in happy mail and I was impressed with them so I went to their website (Counter Culture DIY) and ordered some of their glitters and micas myself. They have a listing for "scoops" that are random items, kind of like a mystery box, but 1) it was out of stock at the time and 2) I wanted specific things, so I went directly to the glitters and micas.
Prior to that, I had ordered some stuff from Rolio and got a free glitter. Coincidentally enough, the free glitter they gifted me was the SAME glitter as one I had ordered myself from AliExpress, lol ⤵️
I guess me getting that glitter was just meant to be, lol. The universe knew 😋
I've been trying to find every excuse in the book to use these glitters in ways that fit my tastes because I'm not really a glitter person and I'm very picky. So far I've been using them with some A6 notebook silicone molds that I can't really remember if I've posted here or not. I don't think I have, sorry about that 🫠 The past 2 months have kind of been a blur with all that's been happening. Family drama and health things are never fun (and I try to be reserved so I don't talk about it online either hence the silence).
I'll get back to resin stuff in a moment but I've been trying to upkeep with making bread too!
Robyn on the Farm recently came out with a new bun recipe and the day she put it out, I made it that evening ⤵️
She uses all cast iron and I use all metal so with this in mind, I increased my bake time on these and I might have overdone it a bit. The first night they were perfect but the next day they were a teeny tiny bit stiff or dense. I probably could have only added 3-minutes extra bake time instead of like 7 minutes, lol. But these were great! Absolutely making these again.
I also tried making that Vegan bread again with the Organic Coconut Cream because my household devoured through our bread supply this month and we're devouring through the new loaves again too. I have some new things to say about that one 🙃⤵️
When I was slicing through this, I was like omg, they look like mushroom slices 😮 My Mother said they look like when you bake a muffin and it overflows out of the muffin pan, lol.
So, the recipe says to mix all the ingredients together and let it proof for 90 minutes. I let mine rise for about 60 minutes because I noticed it was already peaking over the pan and jiggling around quite a bit. If I had let it rise any more than that, it'd grow WAY over and flood out of my pan.
As it was baking, that's what it started doing. About 5-10 minutes through, it was rising up and flowing over the sides and I was starting to panic thinking what do I do if it doesn't stop? Luckily it did stop around 15 minutes but then I had to wonder if it'd fully bake through, because last time, the baking time on the recipe didn't work for me. This time I baked it an extra 10 minutes and it DID work. The crumb came out perfect, imo. But it definitely over-rose for some unknown reason. Perhaps the temperature in my house? My pans were supposed to be the correct size so it's not that 🤷🏻♀️ lol... I always seem to have some issue with baking bread, goodness.
[I say bread specifically because I don't have this problem baking or cooking anything else. Not even pizza crust.]
I'm wondering if it has something to do with the yeast I'm using? There's a blue quick rise and red active instant yeast. As far as I'm aware, from reading the instructions and from listening to bakers on Youtube, the red one you dissolve into warm water, and the blue one you can add straight into your mixture. Hopefully I don't have that backwards, I have it written onto my bottles, lol.
But lately I've been lazily using all of my blue one because it's easier to just add it into my mixture and then add the melted butter & warm water + honey/oil for the yeast to "feed" and activate. This time around however, I was low on my blue one and used my red one instead so I had to directly dissolve it into my warm water and then add my honey. Maybe the red one is more efficient? Or more fool proof? At least for me, lol.
🤷🏻♀️ I don't know. But I probably could have made 3 loaves instead of 2 with how much it rose and waited out the whole 90 minutes. And I think that recipe could use some salt added to it. It's a little on the bland side. But overall it's not bad, it's quick, it's vegan and if you're trying to get your allotted honey in for building allergy tolerance- it's a good choice. I think I'll be sticking with other bread recipes though.
Honestly I should probably make a new post at this point because this is where things are going to get lengthy. I'm going to revisit that Star & Moon shelf in addition to some new molds I bought at the start of April + some that I just got today from the same seller.
These are the first 2 molds I got ⤵️
This is their Etsy if you're interested in looking at their shop.
I was basically shopping around every website I could think of that sold silicone molds looking for molds that could do something very specific. If you read my blog, I'm sure you've seen the keyboard keys I made several posts back? (This post here) Where I'm using tiny embeds from silicone molds meant for nail art inside the keys, to give them depth. I wanted molds that gave me the opportunity to do that. Much like sphere molds do, or cube molds, or pyramid molds, but to be used for jewelry or soothing stones. Think dioramas but on a very small scale and not as detailed or tedious.
The hexagon shape was perfect for me because- bees. I've been wanting to spread awareness about bees. The bar mold is simply because I love that shape and I don't see it used often. I think the bar shape is sophisticated, classy and elegant and you can do a lot with it. But that's just my personal opinion. You can always make it whimsical or magical too with the right touch.
I've only made one thing in those molds so far and ofc it was a bee.
Isn't it cute? I got that mold here at Resin Mold Box. I've had it for a while and I don't get the chance to make the little bees in it that often. I do make the honeycombs themselves quite a bit though, they're great for holding watercolor like a makeshift palette.
I put him inside the largest hexagon with that Counter Culture DIY Beehive Glitter ⤵️
It came out so cute! It's honestly one of my favorite pieces now. I have it placed in front of me near my keyboard next to one of my octopus plushies. The only thing I would do differently next time is make the first layer (back of it) a little thicker, so that there wouldn't be so much clear covering him because the bee does look a little clouded due to all the clear and crushed gold flake (similar to crushed crystal) I added in there.
Just goes to show how much room and how many layers you can potentially add into these molds.
A couple days later I decided to play with those molds again ⤵️
These are going to be pendant + matching earring sets and don't mind me showing the glitter in the second picture. That's another glitter my Dad's Girlfriend gifted me and I was showing her how they turned out in resin 😅
But after seeing how nicely all of these came out, I knew I wanted the other molds from this seller so I went back to their shop and ordered more ⤵️
These just came in today and I was floored that they gave me a freebie mold. I truly mean floored, completely shocked. Before I even saw the sticker that said "free gift" I thought they made a mistake and accidentally sent it to me. My past couple of months have been rather under the weather so this was a very kind and generous thing for them to do and it raised my spirits. Truly grateful they sent it 💗🫶🏻
I have so many ideas and plans for these that I don't even know where to start. And I have some small, but important things in transit from AliExpress too that'll tie everything together.
Lastly, if you're still reading this, lol... the Star & Moon shelf! The foam reinforcement worked!
This was my table earlier today ⤵️
The top left is some molds getting a nice good dose of silicone oil because I've used them for ResinCrete so much that they're now dull looking. I'm trying to restore them. It's working but I only added the oil yesterday and they need another day or two. So if you have a similar problem, you can TRY that. In my case, it usually works, but it also depends on how damaged or dull your mold is.
I used the same exact everything. Same glitter, same mica, same pigment pastes, same crushed crystal and foils that are similar to crushed crystal in size. The only things I did differently this time aside from adding the foam inserts was- I added 1 drop of glue to the Dianka Pours Dark Matter mica powder I used in there and 1 drop of glue to the crushed crystal concoction I made (I mixed crushed crystal, a crushed bronze, and a crushed gold together for a milky way). I also did NOT use any isopropyl alcohol to pre-dissolve my micas this time.
Got zero bloating, or bowing, or sagging, or whatever word you want to use. None.
But I'm not sure how I feel about some of the hard lines I got, probably due to the small amount of glue I added. 50% of the time I look at it, I'm like hmmm it looks like a nebulae, it looks kind of neat. The other 50% I look at it, I'm like ehhh, it looks weird, not really a fan. I don't know, lol.
Oh here's the other things I made that day ⤵️
The black stand there is for a sphere mold I'm going to slowly fill up in layers with extra resin, which WAS originally going to be that shell mold but I swap-a-roo'd my plans on that quite quickly.
If you scroll back up (or remember) you'll see I have that stand mold inside my silicone cup. I have it that way to round it out because left to its own devices, it's not very round, it's more oval. And there was no way I was letting it cure that way (oval, I mean).