I’ve always responded well to objects made from resin. Coloured, clear, solid, opaque, shiny, matte – I’m all for it! And I’ve been keen to have a crack at making something resiny for a while now.

This was one of those incomplete items carried forward from the 50before50 list which I’ve been putting off for over 4 years**. I could always find an excuse to not sign up for a class. Excuses that really wouldn’t survive any scrutiny – various houseworky items, Don having the car for golf.

I’m convinced I was just fearful of what a crafting class would be like – and that I would suck at it. Thankfully I have learned that sucking is okay! It’s not like I want to be a professional resin-glass-kintsugi practitioner. The learning is the thing. Midlife crisis crafting is pretty fabulous.

So I signed up to a class and headed off on the bus yesterday. It’s a 20 minute bus ride, the bus stop is across the road from ThePalace(OfLove). See what I mean about all those excuses?

The class was a fairly diverse mix of 12 women, most of whom were there solo. Everyone was lovely and interesting – though of course there was that one person who got terribly confused and asked All the questions incessantly (which she would have known the answers to if she had just sat quietly and listened). I would not be a teacher for anything.

I’ve said it before, but I really have come to love this sort of environment. Positive, friendly, creative. A love doing crafty things alongside other people – it’s such a good energy.

Honestly it was just what I needed after that hell-week at SML.

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We did quick intros around the tables and then were talked through the processes – the equipment, the chemicals, the safety, the moulds, the colours. Then got stuck in.

These are the initial moulds I chose and an examples of the outputs. I certainly do not expect my finished work to look anything remotely as professional!

Interestingly, the type of mould determines whether the completed piece has a shiny or matte finish. Of course I’m all about the shiny.

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We each got 300ml of resin to play with – and there were a bunch of colours to choose from. I went for the more translucent ones because that’s the look I like best.

Colour goes into the cups first followed by the resin – a little bit of colour goes a REALLY long way.

I chose what I thought were complementary colours, but it was difficult to know what they’d end up like once mixed. My blue was actually purple and my smoke grey quite a bit darker than I expected.

There ended up being so much resin that everyone just kept grabbing additional moulds. I have two bangles, two small bowls, 3 pendants and a coaster.

The is a coaster, I’m not huge on the shape, but it was the only receptacle left to take my waste resin.

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Much like the glass class, because you don’t immediately see a result and are working with the unfamiliar, you really don’t know what you’re going to end up with. There’s no opportunity to course-correct based on initial results. Of course this is the whole thing about learning something new, but there’s a certain level of discomfort in that. No doubt I’ll find that I would have done things slightly differently once all is revealed.

Next week we un-mould! And make more pieces with quicker setting resin.

2911 days

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** I hadn’t realised it was such a long time – yikes! life is racing by.