We are getting ready to participate in a Children’s Craft Fair and Bake Sale Charity event. Half of the sales and all of the raffle ticket proceeds will be donated to the local domestic violence shelter. The kids have been working hard on various projects for a while now. Currently our house has been transformed into a mini art gallery. This is how it all started.
Remember the Magnet boards I made with the twins? Well for their birthday I decided it would be fun to make some magnets with them….never realizing what one innocent little idea would explode into :0).
It all started out with one little fondant mold and a craft store resin kit with a couple of colors and some glitter….two months later and several ordering “mistakes” has led to me shop being over run with resin projects for the past month. One of the most fun has been figuring out how to create ocean scenes.
In this video Making Resin Waves that I helped my oldest daughter film for her YouTube Chanel “The Homeschool Clan” we go through the process of making an ocean scene on a canvas.
My first attempt at an ocean was actually on a small magnet board. I still had left over sand from my Shop floor project that I used for the beach. I gathered my supplies, resin, mixing cups, liquid colorant, colored mica powder and stewed over which color combinations would make the perfect ocean.
As you can see, I innocently thought that a think plastic drop cloth would adequately protect my table from any resin spills :0). I learned quickly that I was not mixing my resin in large enough batches and counter top resin chosen for it’s hardness and scratch resistance was a little difficult to spread in a semi-warm shop.
I carefully crafted my beach line and started mixing colors.
At this point I used the heat gun a little to blend the colors a bit. Then left everything to harden for a few hours. The next step was to add another layer of clear resin and attempt to make some waves.
To make the waves you mix a thick white paste in with some resin and carefully pour them onto the clear. Then using a heat gun, you start to move the white around until it looks like you want. Simple enough right? Haha!!!!
First mistake: my drop cloth started to melt as soon as I got close to the edge with the heat gun.
Second mistake: the counter top epoxy melted in weird patterns that I couldn’t really overcome. Not to mention, I had no idea what I was doing…..
Third mistake: I had propped my sheet metal on a few sticks for support to keep it off the work bench. When heated up, the metal buckled and my resin started to pour off the corners. Whoops! For later projects I cut a piece of OSB slightly smaller than my metal to better support it.
Despite the steep learning curve I was experiencing, I really enjoyed this project and gave it to a friend who loved it!
It was quickly followed by attempt #2 in which I used a blow dryer along with the heat gun to spread the waves.
I thought I’d try something a little different on #3, a sunset, and ended up not liking it….should have taped off the horizon among other things.
The waves still weren’t quite doing what I wanted them to do, so I did what any sensible person would do and bought a different heat gun.
Attempt # 4 was made with the new heat gun. Attempt #3 I considered a complete fiasco and turned it over and it is now the back of attempt #4, although my little girls insisted that it looked beautiful and could not fathom my decision.
The new heat gun made a huge difference in the success of our waves and all of my girls have now made an ocean scene.
Kendie and I made a video of her making this one. It was fun making something with her, she comes out to the shop the least and prefers being creative in the kitchen.
Kaylee enjoyed adding seashell bits…but then her friends showed up right as we were adding the waves, so off she ran ;0)
Cora wanted to make a “Last Unicorn” ocean. Remember the animated movie with the music by America? Yeah, that one. This is the final scene where the Red Bull gets driven into the sea. Complete with a castle in the corner.
Mary was the most prolific and ended up making 3 ocean scenes. The first one she blew her waves with a straw to spread them around. I really like the effect she ended up producing.
On her second picture we added a second layer and more color to the top. I really love the depth of this picture.
Finally Mary made a magnet board, here she is working on the waves.
I made one last large picture. I was using a different type of UV resistant resin and couldn’t quite get the waves to work the way I wanted them to. Grrr…. I suppose there will be at least one more attempt some time in the future!
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