Easy Casting

I finally began using the Easy Cast resin. I should have measured how much I may need but I wanted to hurry and start it while I still had the opportunity to not be interrupted. After mixing per manufacturers directions, I set aside a small bit of it and poured that into a paint palette. Having received good results with the previous experiment, I added some eyeshadow to the palette. One was mixed a bright blue/magenta which gave me a soft metallic purple and the other I mixed the gold/silver. These are two of the eyeshadows used.
After carefully putting in a clear layer of the resin, I slowly added the colored resin with a Popsicle stick. Using a pointed straw, the kind you get with kid fruits drinks, I swirled the surface to get some veining mixed into the clear resin.

Then it occurred to me to add yet another layer of the shimmer eyeshadow to the resin as it started gelling up to give even more dimension to the piece. The good thing is that all I had to do is lightly tap the brush and it flaked down and got absorbed into the resin in a very even pace. It showered down like a light snow, which is the effect I wanted, soft blurring. You still can see through on a few of the pieces but on one of the medium pendants I went back to completely obscure the back. That would be the gold swirled one below. It's a polaroid picture and I didn't want the black of the back of the photo to show. On this one I wanted the back to be more opaque since the thread was white and that tends to turn a bit transparent when mixed with resin. So I 'dusted' it with three more layers of silver eyeshadow. I'm really excited to see how this one will turn out. If it comes out as I hope it will, this will be a permanent mold.

On this one photo, it kept rising and air bubbles kept forming. I think it's because the picture was cute haphazardly. So rather than continue to fight, I flipped it over and added more clear resin to make it more transparent so the picture can be seen. Since the bottom will be more 'puffed out' than the other, I will have to sand that down to make it nice and flat like a coin. I had almost no air bubbles, and those I did have rose to the surface and many popped on their own. I did have to pop a couple but it was nothing compared to the first attempts with the UV resin.
One thing to note: I did seal both the pictures and the thread with a layer of Mod Podge. The directions say to do this so you don't get bleeding or fading of your pictures or anything else that would be porous and trap air. Which would make sense. BUT you must make sure that the glue is completely dry before you expose it to resin. Otherwise the chemical reaction can damage both the item and the resin. Wasted effort and all that.