Make: Your own resin jewellery - yes you can!

Mr Bondville (bless his heart) sent me off to a resin jewellery-making workshop at Barnes in Newtown for my birthday earlier this year. It was 3 hours of theory and practical creative bliss as we muddled our way through our first resin pours, and produced 2 bangles and 2 rings each. Fun!

I wrote a basic tutorial for eBay's Mum's Business website here that you can read to get the low-down, and Barnes have some great kits for beginners (BQueen is especially good). I get so many compliments for my bangles and I love them to bits.

The first step in the process was to have a vision for our pieces (shape, colour, pattern). We then worked on creating the right colour with the first part of the resin liquid mixture. Just a touch of clolour for translucent, more colour for opaque, glitter and pearl for sparkly effects. There were some gorgeous seafoam green bangles happening and a stunning matte black version.

Once we had the colour right, we added the second part of the resin liquid and combined to create a chemical reaction and to begin the to setting process. We then had to be pretty quick to carefully pour the combined resin mixture into the moulds, and used the left-over in small mould trays.

I think we only waited around 15 minutes for the pieces to harden, and then carefully popped them out, and got stuck into the buffing with a fine sandpaper and water. 

Everyone came away with pretty amazing looking pieces. If you think you'd like to try you can contact Barnes in Sydney or look for a resin jewellery-making workshop near you. I'd love to see what you come up with!

Images: Steph Bond-Hutkin | Bondville