Little Windows Resin How-to and Review – Part 2

Well hello there life! How are you doing? Oh, yea, pretty busy there, eh? Yes, I should know! You’ve been keeping me from getting the second part of this blog post up!

**My sincerest apologies for life getting in the way.**

So here is Part 2 of the Little Windows Resin How-to and Review. You can read the first part here: Little Windows Resin How-to and Review: Part 1

Now that my charms have set in the mold for 12 hours, it’s time to remove them!

**NOTE** one of the first things I like to do is give a light touch to each piece, just to make sure they are fully dry. On my last batch, I had one piece that took 18 hours to become mostly dry – I unmolded it and it was hard, but I was able to put a hole in it and sand it without any damage to the piece.

1. The molds are flexible. Take each end (the long way, and twist them away from each other. You should hear some cracking sound – it’s OK! It’s just the charm separating from the mold!

Twisting the mold

2. Turn the mold over and begin smacking it on the table (open side down) until the charms come out. Sometimes it will take a light tap, sometimes a little harder. Your pieces should be solid and have a little give to them. You do NOT want to push the charm out of the mold with your finger, or it can mess up your charm, becasue they are still soft at this point. If your pieces won’t come out of the mold, try sticking them in the freezer for a couple minutes, then twist the mold and smack it again.

3. Put a hole in it! I used the hand drill sold by Little Windows to do this – if you have something similar, that should work (it may be best to do test pieces first – but if your ordering the resin, the hand drill really isn’t that expensive to add to your order). **NOTE** be sure you have a protective covering on your work surface! I actually have two sheets of cork board (the kind you hang on your wall) as a barrier so I don’t accidentally drill through my kitchen table 🙂

4. When you drill all the way through, turn the drill the opposite way to get it back out. There will be a few left over shavings on each side of the piece, but they can easily be wiped/cut away.

5. Once the hole has been drilled, I like to give the back a light sanding to give it a nice finished edge. Some times, there can be areas of thin resin that stick up higher than the overall piece – these can usually be cut with a scissor or sanded away (I’m sorry I don’t have a picture). I used a very fine grit of sandpaper (I believe 1500 grit) and rub the piece in a circle 20-40 times. I usually keep turning the piece to get an even sanding on each side.  There will be a white powder all over the piece (and your fingers), but this easily wipes away with a paper towel.

Wipe the piece gently with a paper towel to remove the sanded resin.

6. I used some ice pick bails I got on Etsy here to hold the charms. Start by opening the bail up, then attached it to the charm in front first, then close it in the back (a pair of jewelry making pliers works good for this step). As the charm is still a little soft, it will give a little and the bail may squeeze into the charm. I like to make sure that mine are secure enough so the bails don’t come out by themselves.

There you have it! A completed charm! I also bought some wine glass hoops from this shop on Etsy to make them into wine glass charms (not shown).

Have I mentioned that I LOVE this product?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! I do. I really do!

*~ Tips & Tricks ~*

After doing a few batches, here are a few extra tips I have that may help you out with yours:

• Think about what you have going on for the day, or also the next day, to determine when you should start. My batch, using all 4 of the small molds, probably took about 3-4 hours, not including the 12 hour drying time, of course 🙂 Generally, mixing, molding, and removing bubbles took at least an hour. Once *dry*, removing from the mold, drilling, sanding, and adding bails took a couple hours. Since it’s harder for me to determine what time at night my charms will be done, I generally start them at night, and come back and do the unmolding in the morning.
• For the 4 small molds, I ended up using 40ml of Part A and 20ml of Part B. This will *just* fit in the blue mixing cup. I also added a little time (30 seconds to a minute or more) to the mixing/setting up time because I was making such a large batch – that is a suggestion from the creator, Fran (and could also be why I had that last piece not dry right away on my last batch). This amount filled the circle and square molds to the top, and filled the rectangle and oval molds almost to the top. I didn’t have to scrape the mixing cup to get enough resin – I could have, but I didn’t feel the need to.
• When you are not working with your hardener, keep it in the fridge. If your house gets too warm, the hardener will turn yellow, and, unless you want yellow pieces, you won’t be able to use it.
• If it’s summer time, then  you shouldn’t have a problem with the temperature of your house (unless it is too hot, then you may want to wait until it cools down). If it is fall, like it is here now in Michigan, our heat is turned on for the winter, but we like to keep it around 68 to save on our energy bills. Per directions of the resin, your room temperature should be above 70 degrees when working with the product. On a day that I’m going to be making charms, I will turn our heat up to 72 and keep it there until I unmold the last charms (i’ll turn it on Friday night or Saturday morning and leave it there until Sunday afternoon/evening). I really do believe this step does help, because I forgot to do this one time, and most of the charms were fine, but I did have a few that had dried completely on the outside, but never dried on the inside. Sometimes it’s just best to follow the instructions!
• Keep checking back here for more tips and tricks – I may add more as I make more charms with this product!

Happy Crafting!