#jade.blog

[jaderimehardt]

I am back! I have been desperately trying to use what was left of that leftover resin from last time 😅 I made wayyyyy too much.

Need to remember that "a little" goes a very long way when working with UV Resin, lol 🙃 (though I guess it depends on your definition of "a little")

With a different mold, I made some more moons! 🌙

And I made a bunch of octopuses, lol 🐙💗

I didn't want to keep doing the same thing over and over but I also wanted to keep some kind of theme going...

I really like the clear octopuses with the bubbles~ 🫧. If you see faint water ripples over the octopuses that's because I did put some there. But it is kind of hard to tell unless you're moving them back and forth in the light.

Lastly some more stars ✨. I need to add hardware to all of my resin pieces still (bails, earring hooks, necklace cord, etc).

And with this, I have finished off the resin in my cups 😅

[jaderimehardt]

Last post I said I was going to focus on space and ocean things again... yet here I am with FFXIV Job Stones 🙃💎

Dawntrail is going to release on the 28th for those with early access and I think the 2nd for those who don't?

My train of thought was "I want a set of Job Stones". But I don't have a mold for Gunbreaker (GNB), Dancer (DNC), Reaper (RPR), or Sage (SGE), and most importantly Azem. Maybe someday.

Only just now realizing I didn't take a picture of the back of these, lol. The back is a pearlescent white.

I didn't want to take a picture of each one of the job stones, so here's example shots of two; Monk and Bard.

And because making 15 Job Stones wasn't enough for me in a 2-day span, I also made these~ 😅

I have so much resin left over from these Moon and Stars, so you'll likely see these colors again very soon 🌙⭐

[jaderimehardt]

Continuing on with post 2~

I do this way too often 🫠

We're back on the subject of the little Owl Tealight Candle Holders! The other thing wrong with those molds were... they don't actually fit tea lights, lol 🙃

But, they will fit fairy lights.

Unfortunately, I don't have any so I had to order some 🙃

This morning I broke out my ResinCrete, for the first time in a while, actually... was kind of like seeing an old friend, but an old hobby that you missed doing, if that makes sense? Because it's been at least half a year since I've used ResinCrete.

Don't take this as me complaining or ranting or whining, but they kind of jacked up the pricetag on ResinCrete by a whopping 20$ USD or something crazy. It wasn't a small increase. So, I just stopped buying it.

I took economics, I have a degree in accounting, I took business classes, I get it. It's called supply and demand. When your product is doing good, you raise prices. And then there's other economic and political things you take into account and add onto it that I'm not going to dive into because I'm not trying to turn my blog into some controversial debate club or woe-is-me hotspot but what I am trying to say is- it's not in my budget unless it goes on sale.

[Which hey, right now as I'm writing this, it is on sale on Amazon. I'd order more but I have a brand new bag still waiting for me 🙃.

Edit: I ended up buying another bag after all, Lol 😅😋.]

I also wasn't using it as much as I used to, so 🤷🏻‍♀️

Because it's been a good while, I actually had to look at the back for ratios. I couldn't remember 🫢

I didn't know how much these took and I'm bad at guessing, so I went with 300g ResinCrete and 90g Water. Though, I like to add a bit extra water to make the ResinCrete a little more crepe-like consistency and easier to work with. It also allows me the ability to work with it a bit longer and removes more bubbles, AND gets into nooks, crannies, grooves, crevices, etc better.

Just take into consideration not to add too much water. You'll make the ResinCrete too brittle or ruin the molecular structure of it and you definitely don't want that.

Another thing I've noticed that I do differently from a lot of people who work with ResinCrete or other art cast-like mediums is that I add my powder... to my water. Re-read that if you need to.

A lot of people will add their water... to their powder.

Nuh uh. I can't stand that. Gets way too many lumps doing it that way.

I'll also add about 1/4th of my powder at a time, mixing it completely before adding more. I know it risks curing because I'm taking longer by doing it, and maybe that's why I like adding in more water, but I really do get out all of the lumps by doing it that way.

Everyone has their own way and that's mine 🤷🏻‍♀️

This was after pouring the first 300g + 90g ⤵️

I was prepping another 150g ResinCrete + 45g Water for the last owl. Thing is, I ended up making extra things and if I didn't make the extras, I probably could have made ALL the owls with just 400g of ResinCrete and 120g Water. I'll try the next time I make these.

You can see I have some leftover ResinCrete in my bowl there. This is what I do with it ⤵️

Let it finish drying/curing, crunch it up, break it up, save it in a container for later use like Terrazzo.

If you don't want to leave it in a silicone cup like I did, you can spread it out on a ziplock bag, or a piece of cling wrap and wait for it to dry/cure and then break it up.

I'd advise to wear gloves or something before breaking it though. It can get sharp. I know in the photos I did not- mine was still on the hydrated/wet side, barely dry/cured, when it wasn't sharp but it's better to be safe than sorry. This is one of those cases where I'm doing that "do as I say, not as I do" 🙃

Here's the owls demolded after 30 minutes or so ⤵️

That's one of my favorite things about ResinCrete; Quick demold.

And here's the Owls after cleanup ⤵️

I had a LOT of overpour because this was my first time pouring them, so there was a LOT of cleanup involved. They came out super cute though! I can't wait to paint them, seal them and add fairy lights to them 🦉💗

Oh and I want to add this as my last blurb (for this post); ResinCrete Related.

There is a Content Creator out there, I will not name-names- and they are telling people in their videos that you CAN wash this stuff down your sink when you are finished working with it. As in, to clean your cups, tools, work station, yada yada.

Do not.

I'm refraining from being blunt and unfiltered here- but this stuff is a powder that you literally mix with WATER to turn into a dense ceramic, equivocal to plaster of paris. What do you think is going to happen if you run it down your sink with MORE water? Please use your brain.

And it's not like they're new to working with this stuff either and they're giving out this misinformation.

As content creators, especially on platforms like Youtube making videos, if you guys do not know something, for the love of God either say you do not know something if you insist on saying it and you do not have all the information, or don't say it at all, or do the research, rather than spread misinformation.

Because new people come into these hobbies weekly, daily, hourly, by the minutes. They look up to you. They listen to you. They take your word as gospel and truth. When you say something as idiotic like "run ResinCrete down your sink to clean it out" and it clogs their plumbing, and they end up with thousands of dollars in bills and repairs, it's not going to fall back on you (the content creator), it's going to fall back on them. You're not going to feel the repercussions, but it could be enough to push that person who was already stressed and just needed a cozy hobby outlet- over the edge. So, stop being irresponsible.

And yes, that was a rant. That was my version of sugar-coated, you do not want to hear my raw-unfiltered rant. I'm tired of people NOT taking accountability for their actions.

How to clean ResinCrete properly? Use a damp paper towel with water to clean your tools and then throw it in the garbage, or use a baby wipe. Wearing gloves is preferred because as mentioned above, when dried/cured it can get sharp.

You might be thinking, well, what if I take it outside and hose it down? I'll say to you, what about the birds, cats and doggos that walk around? This stuff gets sharp, you want them walking on top of that? Spraying that stuff into the street, onto the ground, where do you think it's going to go?

There's no way I'm the only one who thinks about this stuff. Lord help me if I am.

[jaderimehardt]

I'm slacking on creating posts again 🫠 I have a lot of stuff to share and I think it's too much for 1 blog post so I'm going to split it into 2. Hopefully I don't get things crossed but if I do, just know today's posts are basically connected 🤷🏻‍♀️

So, the part that's going to confuse myself by splitting things into two posts, is that I got these 4 molds from AliExpress ⤵️

They came in the mail several days ago and I was super excited to get them and cast in them! They're called Owl Tealight Candle Holders.

Well, there's a lot of things wrong here, and I'll be coming back around to that in my second post. But as I was opening them and laying them out to decide colors for epoxy resin, I noticed they weren't "up to snuff" for the epoxy medium- exactly.

Here's what I mean ⤵️

I tried to take several photos so you can see what I see, because I know my camera is outdated. But these were clearly created by a 3D printer and the filament lines are obvious and super visible. If I were to pour epoxy into these molds, those lines would cast onto the epoxy and be equally as visible.

It's not a total defeat though, I can still cast ResinCrete in these and sand down the filament lines, or paint over them and then seal it. They'll no longer be there or visible at that point.

I'm not the type that likes to give up on molds right away, but if there's something wrong with it and it's outside of my ability to "fix" it, I'm going to throw in the towel rather than waste my time, lose sleep, and fuss over it.

it's a bit odd because usually when I order stuff from AliExpress, they're impressive quality. I'm not going to say this is the first thing that has disappointed me from their site (that I've ordered from them), but it's maybe 1 of 3 out of soooo many things I've ordered over the years.

And not to spoil it, but I do cast this in ResinCrete (which I'll show in my next post) and they come out super cute! The price on the molds were fair, so I'm not that upset. Just means I have to use these molds a little differently than how I originally intended. Life works that way sometimes... actually, a lot of the time 🤷🏻‍♀️.

Onto the main content of the post~ ⤵️

I bought these Adjustable Mold Housing Borders, but they're molds? You can buy the housing borders straight up, already made, but I didn't want those.

Why buy 4 of them already made (for a higher price, mind you), when you can buy the mold itself and make as many as you want? Let's Resin has a pre-made mold housing frame too.

So, I got the molds and I've made 2 here, and later on I make 2 more. And in the future I'll make another 2 for a total of 6 so I have the option to make a large rectangular silicone mold whenever I want to. But at some point I'd like to have 8 or 10 total at least, so I can make 2 molds at a time, 1 square, 1 rectangular. Things will just be ready for me as I need it.

I also made those obnoxious crystal tea light candle holders again because the last ones I made got 1 singular bubble in it, lol. These ones turned out perfect! Good to go for making my own molds 👌🏻

Oh and I got that Celestial Lantern from AliExpress also! Poured that in what I felt were "Celestial" colors- so a tealish blue, I think I used my Black Diamond brand teal that literally does not have a name because it's so ancient. Used my Pearl mica powder from Renfio, and Golden Labradorite by Meyspring.

I used my left over resin for another pencil holder because it's literally impossible to have too many of those. As soon as I fill 1, I need another, I don't know how it keeps happening but it does 🤷🏻‍♀️ I swear someday I'll make some to sell for other people 🙃🫠😵‍💫

[I'm running out of countertop space so it's an inevitability, and people to gift them to.]

The crystal candle holders came out a lot nicer this time, probably because I poured them once before and knew what to expect this time.

My next pour was this ⤵️

The 3rd & 4th of the mold housing borders, a bunch of flowers that can be used for various things. Like lid toppers, inside of trays, embedded into trays, or into bowls, or jewelry boxes, you name it.

I also made another Octo pencil holder (and I'm going to watch my verbiage here 😖).

There's a bunch of jewelry tags- those were made with my extra resin, and I finally finished off my sphere! That's the mold I've been putting a lot of my extra resin into when I didn't know where else to put it 😅 I need to figure out a new mold for my extra now or make another sphere.

A lot of those flowers are cherry blossoms/sakura, and 1 is a rose. I love cherry blossoms and roses, though my all time favorite flower is a different one.

I wanted to show this incase anyone gets that particular cherry blossom mold I'm holding in my hand.

It has thin walls that you can/should pull or cut off with an X-acto blade to make it look as realistic as it does. There's an example in the following picture along with tool examples ⤵️

Oh and yes, I'll be coloring all of the flowers to give them more detail 😊 I can't just leave them monotone 1-color like that.

[I say that but I actually poured them using 3 different mica colors.]

Here's my Octo pencil holder 🐙 ⤵️

With this, I added in 3 separate colors of alcohol ink with 1 pearl mica powder and this is how it blended together (you can see the 3 colors more clearly in my housing borders). Looks very satin and whimsical, right?

I'm kind of blown away at how it blended. A lot of white went to the bottom as it cured (which is now the top), and a lot of white-as I was pouring it, blended into the alcohol ink, making it look like sunlight shining and dancing through the water. I love it, and I'm going to color ~certain parts of it~ (again watching my verbiage) ~eyes tumblr~ 😑.

And then we have my sphere~ ⤵️

It looks so cool, I absolutely love how it came out!

The NicPro Acrylic Pouring Oil is in one of the photos because this is what I use to bring life back to my molds when they're looking dull or have scratches or feel dehydrated, or whatever else.

I added some after I demolded my sphere because it's been sitting out for weeks, maybe over a month, while I've been adding to it all this time and it left behind these line marks from where I poured each layer.

The oil didn't remove the line marks after cleaning it but it does feel more hydrated and restored, so hopefully there's no damage done to it.

That's all for this post, onto the next!

[jaderimehardt]

I got some new glitters! Among many other things, but this post I'll show the glitters and a couple of the new molds I casted.

Amazon has been having this Prime Days sale and I ordered some things off AliExpress that just got here so I have a bunch of new things to play with 😊

There's this Youtuber that I watch named @ResinMessExpress, who somewhat recently got affiliated with this glitter company called Glitter Hippo. Their glitters are super pretty and interesting and she has a coupon code so I ordered a few.

Ngl, I've been ordering a lot of things this month so I had to limit what I got otherwise I definitely would have gotten WAY more but there's always the future 😋

They sent me a freebie! It's that thermal light purple/lavender one at the bottom. Very pretty 🫶🏻

The Cherry Blossom/Sakura one caught my eye the most. I can always use rainbow shards, and that mount olympus one changes colors depending on the angle you look at it.

And next we have my casts/pours for today~ ⤵️

I don't remember how long ago it was, but months & months ago I poured this octopus jar with red ink pigment (not alcohol ink but the other clear type ink) by Limino, Tiffi Blue pigment paste from Eye Candy, and White Chalcedony mica powder from Meyspring.

The result of it wow'd me so much that I was like, I'm keeping this jar, lol.

Well, it's sitting on my bookcase now, but I wanted to make some matching pieces so I poured those same exact colors again in three of the pieces ⤵️

The bottom of the Octopus arm pencil holder one is rather sharp and ALL of these need to be sanded down still. I'll get to that tomorrow but it's already so late tonight.

And then I ordered some crystal tea light candle holders and I attempted to use the same colors I had used for a coaster set I just made. But I made the colors lighter so when the tea lights are on, the resin would be transparent enough for the light to pass through the resin/crystals ⤵️

These pictures don't show the colors well, but perhaps that's fine. It's genuinely hard to see the color separation.

It was also ridiculously hard to get these crystal tea lights out of the mold. If you get these molds yourself, prepare some alcohol or soapy water, let these fully cure before even attempting to demold them, and BE PATIENT. Or you will 100% either tear the casted resin piece, or the mold, or both, trying to remove the piece. I'm half tempted to make myself a new mold set with these two using a softer silicone- they were that difficult.

[They took 60ml each btw.]

It wasn't just me having a difficult time demolding these. The comments on a listing for these on Amazon has people mentioning their struggles too. Here's the listing. I got my set from a different seller on AliExpress but the molds seem to be identical.

These were extras using my extra resin ⤵️

Not sure how I feel about the crystal being matte because I kind of wanted that to be a little shinier. Didn't have to be totally shiny, just shinier. Love the shell, it just needs to be painted so the Octopus and other detailing shows.

I got a little Kitsune mold! Or as others know it, a nine-tailed fox ⤵️

This cutie needs some eyes painted onto it. But my color attempts were a bust, lol. Though you wouldn't know that unless I told you because it honestly looks totally fine.

I attempted to make the tips of the tail, clear with gold flake, followed by orange mica, followed by red mica, followed with a white pearl body. But the white completely sank. The clear and gold flake completely merged with everything else... 🙃🫠.

I gave my resin about 20 minutes before pouring and usually that's good to keep colors separate, and I guess I could have used glue, and I guess I could always paint it, but I don't mind how it turned out. It's super cute. I love the white ears and white tips of the tail.

There is a video I want to share that I probably should have shared ages ago back when I was making my UV Resin painted bookmarks because that's when I found it.

Every time I think about detailing, like I am now with my Octopus Arm pencil holder way up there 👆🏻 I think back to that video.

It's regarding mod podge and how you can mix things with it and paint it onto stuff for a permanent look. Like glitter for example. I could mix glitter or some glow powder into a bit of mod podge and paint it onto the suckers of that pencil holder. It'll add some sparkle or glow in addition to some shine (because it's a matte mold).

Here's the vid ⤵️

I really need to try this, I have the mod podge.

[jaderimehardt]

I'm going to mash a couple of pours in this post, so I guess the past 5 or so days? Because I didn't plan this well, lol 😅

I got this new tray mold! Actually I was aiming to get several but this 3-tray mold set I ordered came in a really bad condition, so I tried to order a replacement, went rounds with Amazon about the replacement, finally got a new order, that set was in terrible condition too, returned both sets back, and ordered a whole new set from a different seller that only cost like 2$ USD more and has like 5 bonus molds included, and wow. What a hecking difference in condition.

The first seller's mold set had dents, warps, scratches, buffed out marks, you name it (even a whole palm print on one of them!). Sorry but not sorry, they looked like they were used or stored horribly 🤷🏻‍♀️

The second seller I went with... I'm not going to say they're perfect, because they stacked the rounded molds on top of each other and they have some indents because of that, but they are shiny, no scratches, no warps or indents, and I'm totally okay with that. The set also came with 8 molds for 17$ rounded up. I can always top coat. It's this set here.

[It's on a -23% discount atm so the price may change.]

I mean, I could have top coated the other one, but the 3-tray rectangle mold set from the other seller was not deep enough to do that with.

I'll take my wins where I can.

That whole ordeal took a few days to manage and I was hoping to get it done before Father's day but in the end I chose to just make the larger tray anyways. But now, expect to see a lot of trays in the future lol, because I have many molds 😋

The first pour came out looking like this ⤵️

For the tray I used these ⤵️

My thought process was to see how much it took and to find any trouble spots, because the first pour never really comes out right- usually anyways.

For the other items, I wanted stuff to match that jar I made not too long ago for potential toppers.

This is how things turned out ⤵️

I really liked how the tray came out! The pearl really blended but that's probably because I used my heat gun to blend the colors a bit.

The potential toppers came out nice! ⤵️

I threw some of my extra resin into my drip mold and this is how it blended together ⤵️

Thought that was curious and pretty.

For my next pour, I wanted to try making the tray for my Dad, finally. But using his favorite color, Blue. His house has dark gray carpet and white walls so I wanted to incorporate that too ⤵️

And then I wanted to make this coaster set I just got from AliExpress using some colors that reminds me of my cutie character from a game I play ⤵️

I also needed to add a doming coat to my lid jar with all of the decorative toppers added ⤵️

This is how my table looked this morning after everything was cured ⤵️

And here's everything demolded ⤵️

I still need to color the chain around the lid jar with metallic paint pen but the hardest part of it is done.

I'm so happy with how the tray came out, it looks like blue slate. And those coasters... probably my newest obsession. I can't get over the textures on those. They will probably look better in transparents/alcohol inks but I intentionally used mica powders first because I wanted that cobblestone one to look like... well, cobblestone.

My camera is absolutely not doing it justice because that dark matter mica powder is in there and the camera isn't picking it up. Normally I try to use a color corrector to fix the yellow lighting (from my yellow walls) but it wasn't fixing it this time so I left it out of these photos. I couldn't find a filter/color corrector that'd correct the coloring 🤷🏻‍♀️

I have a bunch of octopus molds coming soon! Looking forward to those 🐙💗

[jaderimehardt]

Earlier today, I was playing with a bunch of my nail tech silicone molds using UV Resin. I've been accumulating a couple dozen of them over a while now to use them in a few things but it takes a bit of time to make all of the small pieces, especially if you want to get really detailed with them.

I also haven't used most of them for the first time, so a lot of it is a learning experience. For example, some of the flowers have deep petals that I had to make sure the resin would sink down into and didn't get bubbles. Same goes for some of the octopuses and their arms. Another thing is some of the molds are really shallow/thin and using mica powder to coat it will give you over pour so when the casting comes out, I'd have to clean it up gently and patiently with an X-acto blade to remove that excess overpour.

I'm explaining most of it now because I'm likely going to photo dump below, there's not much else to say 😅

Here's a mold of some jellyfish 🪼 ⤵️

This is an example of one that had really shallow/thin casting with the mica powder that I had to clean up afterwards. These lil jellies are so ridiculously small but I love the way they came out 🫶🏻

These Octos were the same way too 🐙 ⤵️

You can see before the clean up and after the cleanup.

[I found a listing for this octo/jellyfish mold today as I was browsing Amazon.]

I moved on to some slightly easier molds ⤵️

The lotus flowers gave me a little bit of a hard time. No matter how much I tried to get the bubbles out, they refused. Between using a dotting tool, a long neck lighter, letting it sit for a few minutes... they were just stubborn, lol. Think I have to go at it one petal at a time next time or something. Some of these silicone molds are truly a trial in patience.

The easiest ones I think were these ⤵️ (but I'm not saying they were easy in general)

Cute lil koi fishies!

I made several~

By the time I finished with everything you see in this post, 5 hours had passed.

Time goes quick when working with UV Resin 🫠🙃

[jaderimehardt]

Once again I wasn't going to post some of my projects but then I went to include something I did a bit ago into today's post and it'll be one of those "well, where did that come from?" type situations so...

This was from over a week ago ⤵️

I went on this weird "let's try this" adventure with sea salt and the tea light candle holders I've been using lately.

My Cousin recently graduated High School and I was trying all sorts of things to make my Mother and I a jewelry set that looked nice- not cheap or like costume jewelry and I figured sea salt gives that nice natural but clean and sophisticated look.

[No, I'm not saying resin looks cheap or like costume jewelry nor am I implying it. I feel like people are on a witch-hunt recently and put words into your mouth that you literally don't say so I'm making that point perfectly clear. *Points to INTJ mbti* ☝🏻]

This is what my set ended up looking like ⤵️

[The set I made my Mother was similar but a Purple Sea Salt Sphere and Butterfly earrings using Chameleon Flake Powders.]

I was severely lacking bead caps that'd fit over the size of the sphere molds I used and only had this ONE option. Not the best choice for "upscale" but it was all I had. The octopus earrings... I mean, it's me. I love octopuses and if I can find an excuse to squeeze them into my attire somewhere, I'm gonna do it. 🐙💓

At some point in the near future, I'm going to coat the lil octo earrings in that coating UV Resin, I think, so they have more of a finished look. Though, I may try that on a different pair first just incase it doesn't come out how I think it'll come out, lol. But yeah, the time crunch my Mother and I were feeling was kind of rough. We were given short notice and we were scrambling to get stuff together 😵‍💫

The entire ceremony was nice and we had a great time spending the day with our family. We don't get to see them often or spend much time with them when we do actually see them.

The lil sea salt octo will make a reappearance later.

My purple mica is getting low so I bought some more. Actually two colors but I forgot to take a picture of one of them. The one I forgot to snap a picture of is from Meyspring and it's called Dusklight Crystal. At the time of me writing this post, they have an 18% off promo on Amazon for most of their Mica Powders, so check them out if you're interested.

I almost got their White Pearl today too, but went with another brand that sold 100g for cheaper than their 50g. I just hope I don't regret passing up their White Pearl for the cheaper one because I love Meyspring's mica powders. They do say you get what you pay for 🤷🏻‍♀️ We'll see when I get it, but if you're interested, it's this one here; Pearl White by Renfio.

I've gotten a yellow mica powder from Renfio before and I think a couple glitters. Not upset with them at all, so I'm hoping this pearl white lives up to my expectations.

The other purple I got was this Dazzling Purple from Luckymica, the same brand as the red I just got from a post or two ago ⤵️

It's a very pretty purple 🟪💜

And then I ordered a bunch of new colors (and one restock) from Dianka Pours ⤵️

I feel like I have way more colors than I'll ever need now and I really just need to stop buying mica powders 😅 (as if that'll ever happen 😋)

The 8-in-1 Little Octopus Mold from Into Resin also arrived! ⤵️

And I got a new jar mold that I poured yesterday that I'll show lower down. But first, there's something I want to put out there.

I noticed something happening to my silicone mats and for the longest time I was baffled why it kept happening. Honestly, there are times where I'm a royal derp and it takes me way too long to realize things- I think this is one of such cases.

If you scroll back through my posts, I had that fancy silicone Resiner's mat, but it kind of felt like it was faux leather on one side. I'm not entirely sure what it was made of, but I preferred that mat most out of every mat I have ever used.

Edit: Here's a very old link of it on Amazon. They no longer have the link on their direct website. It's "currently unavailable" and has been for a very long time but I have it in my shopping list incase they ever decide to bring it back. Confirmed it's made out of "PU Leather".

When I swapped to regular silicone mats, similar to baking ones with high heat resistance, I started encountering a problem with warping, or bubbles, wrinkles, or rising pockets. However you want to describe it. I'd chalk it up to the resin's heat, from curing, causing the silicone mat to warp and cause the bubble/wrinkle, or what-not. I'd get disappointed, a little annoyed, move on, deal with it, work around it, some odd months later buy a new one when I could no longer work around all the many wrinkles, bubbles, warps, etc.

Well as I'm procuring more and more molds, I'm noticing it's a certain type of silicone mold that's causing this and it's frustrating MYSELF that I didn't notice it sooner. You would think I would notice a pattern like this, but I didn't.

It was thanks to those Small Octopus molds from Amazon that I realized it because they're made from that super soft flexible squishy bouncy and hydrated silicone (I'm trying to think of every descriptive word I can use here).

For whatever reason, that type of silicone causes the warps on the silicone mats. Probably because it suctions onto the mat? And then add the heat when the resin is curing and it "irons" it out and warps the area under it and around it...? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Regardless the case, I can't keep buying silicone mats like they're Vitamin C packets during Flu season so I made some laminated cardstock paper sheets to go on top of my silicone mats, for those specific molds to sit on. ⤵️

At the time I didn't know if one or two would be needed (or enough), so I made two. I stacked them when I went to use them because they didn't exactly "slide" across my mat when it was just one laminated sheet on top of a cardstock sheet. So it's basically two laminated sheets of cardstock paper, on top of two sheets of cardstock paper. Like this ⤵️

I think youtubers get away with just adding paper towels under their molds but they also use heating mats, and I don't use a heating mat. Maybe I'm missing something somewhere, I have no idea 🫠 This isn't something that's been talked about, afaik.

And now we move onto today's projects~ are you still reading this? 🙃

I added a filter to the photo to lighten it but it appears to have washed out some of the colors 🫠

Here's the cute Into Resin octopuses ⤵️

I still need to give their expressions some details with a black paint pen.

That jar mold is very nice 💗 I got it because it has this paper clip-like chain detailing that I love and for a very long time, I couldn't find anyone carrying it here in the US for anything- like bag straps, necklace chain, chain on spools, finished jewelry pieces, etc. For that reason, I turned to AliExpress and was buying a lot of my chain from them because they were the only suppliers I could find for that type of style I love.

So when I saw that jar, I was like 🥰💗 mine~ 🤗

It comes with two lid types, which I'm a fan of. You can choose if you want to be super creative with the blank top one and add stuff to it like a UVDTF, sand + shells, a knob, a pendant, and then add an extra top coat. You can gem/pearl the border, or add twine, flowers, ribbons, bows, etc if you don't like the idea of adding another topcoat. I might be adding something + a top coat, I have some pictures with ideas that I'll add below.

Or you can choose the lid that matches the rest of the jar and go for simplistic because that looks nice too.

It's a decently sized jar! I chose red-purple-blue because it's one of my favorite 3-color palettes, along with yellow-green-blue. That combo reminds me of magic I think 🤔 (the red-purple-blue one, I mean). I did toss in some clear with bronze flake. Orange-purple-red is nice too- think that one reminds me of Skittles, lol.

Here's some ideas for the top ⤵️

Obviously these aren't the exact ones I'd be adding on top, but the shape/mold. I'd recolor them to match more.

Here's the other lil doo-dads I made ⤵️

I tried making the shells look abalone again but using a different combination of colorants.

This is supposed to be a candle mold and it's fairly obvious ⤵️

But I got it because it's a really cool mold of an octopus/kraken taking down (or playing with) a boat (whichever your interpretation is). This is another one I get to color later but it got a lot of bubbles likely as I was adding in some vase filler to the resin as I was filling the mold.

I was attempting to get a "wave" look as the light passed through it but the vase filler kept floating up and I kept having to push it back down. It was kind of obnoxious if I'm honest, lol. Probably wouldn't go that route again, or I wouldn't fill it 100%. Maybe 90%, let it float and mostly cure, then add that last 10% so it's flat on the bottom. But I'd also have to coat the sides better to prevent all those bubbles.

There are a lot of 3D Printer lines and other unknown scratches on the mold that I cannot do anything about unless I spray seal it or something...

Still, I thought I'd show it because despite all the flaws, I still like it. If I can figure out how to make a silicone plug so it can be something useful like a pencil holder (for future pours), that'd be great...