Candy Button Resin Necklace Project!

If you're a DIY-er like me, you're always seeing inspiration everywhere. I'm going as Katy Perry for Halloween this year, probably my most involved costume yet. I'm altering my costume (I got a white tutu and am putting sparkly dots on it) and making my jewelry. So if you want to make your own candy button jewelry too, here's how I did it!

Get your Candy Buttons (the kind on the white paper) and clean them up a bit, as they have a tendency to take some of the paper with them when you pop them off.
You'll want to seal the candies so they don't disintegrate in the resin and the color doesn't bleed. In an area with lots of ventilation, spray them with at least two coats of an acrylic spray, I used Krylon. Let dry between coats.



They'll move around a bit but make sure they're coated well!



Make sure they're completely dry, mix up your resin (I use Castin Craft's clear epoxy) and only fill your molds about 1/4 of the way full, just enough to cover the candies. Put your candies in the resin the way you want them. I wanted them to look just like the real thing so I went with the pink/yellow/blue situation. Let cure for as long as required, most require a day to cure.




Now for your final resin step, you can do this in many ways. You can use more clear resin in the last layer and put glitter in it, sprinkles, whatever you want! I used a resin type that cures white, just because I wanted it to look like the candies were on the white paper tape.
Additionally, I wanted some sparkle, so I used a glittery varnish over the piece.




And just because I wanted something fun on my own piece, I put little crystal hearts on the chain and made myself a ring too!




You can make these your own in so many ways, so as long as you have time (and the patience!), you can make tons of fun, unique pieces!

P.S., if you don't have the patience, I have one made up for you to buy in my Etsy shop!
http://www.etsy.com/listing/84580068/sweet-tooth-candi-button-resin-necklace

A DIY Vintage Inspired Necklace!

I recently came across my grandma's old vintage rhinestone and crystal jewelry from the late 50's and 60's not long ago. I've been wearing the various necklaces a LOT and am now hunting for different colored pieces to complete my color spectrum. But what I really wanted was a piece with stones in different shapes, sizes and colors, which has proved nearly impossible to find anywhere online despite my constant search.

I considered making one and thought it would be impossible until I got myself into Michael's the other day and searched for supplies. I somehow found myself down the sticker aisle and found these great, vintage style stones, even in settings, in different shapes and colors! I then hustled back to the jewelry area and found clear rhinestone chain just like so many vintage pieces have, my only dilemma was how to attach said stones to the necklace.

Lo and behold, I found flatback head pins and figured I could glue the head pins to the stones then attach the stones to the necklace! Granted, this necklace is very lightweight in comparison to real vintage pieces but it serves my purpose and has gotten many compliments so far!

Below is a picture of the supplies I used, obviously not shown but needed are small pliers (I had two pairs of needle nose pliers, round pliers and cutters to cut the wire) and some super glue (I used Gorilla brand super glue). Next to that is the final product!

New Molds Can Be Hard to Get Used To!

I've been taking LOTS of custom orders lately, hence my lack of blog post updates! I had quite a large order for 12 of my dress form necklaces, then another 12 after that. Normally that would have been no problem except BOTH of my lovely, high quality dental grade silicone dress form molds (made by my dad; thanks dad!) decided to basically crumble as I was pulling the pieces out of the molds. Any mold will break down after a certain amount of uses and unfortunately, these molds chose the middle of my large order to break.

Now as I mentioned, the dental-grade silicone my dad had made my molds with is VERY expensive and he ran out of it, so I decided to try out Castin Craft's Silicone Mold Putty. The directions seem simple but the working time is VERY short, about 5 minutes, if that, so if you don't get the putty mixed quickly and press your item in it, you end up with a dried up, rubbery ball. I managed to mess up the first two so again, my dad helped me with making the molds and I used up all the material but I got four molds out of it.

I have to say, I'm not TOO happy with this material, it may be okay for clay pieces but with my Castin Craft epoxy resin, it creates bubbles all over the piece even if you let the resin sit and de-gas itself for a few minutes before pouring it.

It looks like this, you mix the purple and white until the color is uniform.


I Googled for a good hour and didn't find a thing about how to get rid of the bubbles other than not using a wooden stir stick as it introduces moisture (didn't help) or to pop the bubbles with a pin (only helpful for a few bubbles, not hundreds as I had in every piece).
I finally found something somewhere that suggested using baby powder or talc and powder the mold to get rid of some of the moisture in the material. It helped to an extent but not a whole lot. I did have some bubbles but at least the pieces no longer looked like a freshly poured glass of Sprite.




Final piece:



If you have any ideas or know of anything that works for sure for keeping bubbles out of pieces made in the Castin Craft Silicone Putty molds, please feel free to comment!