This morning was quite crazy! After driving around to a few stores (hunting for the perfect Father's Day gift), we were headed back home so that Justin could quickly get dressed, eat, and head off to work. The car would not start at all. He thought the starter was broken, but a passer-by thought it sounded like a dead battery, and offered us a jump. Sure, why not?

And it worked! We drove home, and had to leave the car running so that I could drive him to work and then get a new battery. (Did I mention, we only have one car?) We were a little scared we wouldn't make it when we got in the car and saw the gas light had come on, but it turned off as we started driving. His (summer) job & the car dealership are only about 5 minutes from our house, so I made the trip, sat in the waiting room reading "White as Snow" for over an hour, paid them way too much money, and then quickly drove to the gas station.


But, before all that, I did manage to get a few things into the oven.



This was supposed to be an ambigram necklace for myself, but the resin turned cloudy & yellow in the oven. Even though I ran a few test pieces of resin through the oven, I had only applied clay to the back of the pieces. The test pieces did not yellow, so now it seems the reaction of the baking clay is what does it?

And now I am going to give up on resin with clay setting, and look into the metal settings once again. Which is probably a good thing ~ with bezel cups I can pour directly into the setting & not deal with the mold at all.


I also made...


( SWEET GINGER CHEWY GRANOLA BARS )

My crane pendants worked out a lot better now that I have fresh resin! There are still some minor flaws, but I'm learning along the way.



I grabbed this silver clay from the Sculpey section, but turns out it was "Premo" brand (which is made by Sculpey, but different). I have mixed feelings about this clay ~ for one thing, it is thicker and a bit harder to mold. But, this also makes leaving fingerprints almost impossible, which I really enjoy! It seems to keep an oily sheen, which is also nice.

But the metallic part of the silver seems to be a little... odd. I made dents around the top, thinking I would give the pendant a twisted rope kind of pattern, but then decided to smooth it out. You can see the color in these sections stayed darker. It does not seem to blend well, and swirled on the back of the pendant as well. I would like to buy some black and see how a solid color handles.

(I also have Fimo brand in silver, but it is more glittery than metallic & not as classy looking. Maybe I'll have to stick to silver paint!)

All three are up in the shop.

( My original bad luck with resin )



( My new bad luck )



So, after all of the disasters, I still present you with these three pendants! The clay on the first two is textured and highlighted with silver paint. The third one is smoothed (not textured)

I used the last of my birthday money to buy some "Amazing Mold Putty" that I have been eyeing for a while. I bought it to use with a resin project I've been working on a while ~ hopefully you will see it here soon!

You grab equal amounts of the two putties & mix them together & form a mold that you can use with:
*Resin
*Clay
*Soap
*Candles
*Chocolate
*Ice... and whatever else

I want to make molds for things that I think I could actually sell because the stuff costs $20. I don't want to do anything with chocolate or food because I don't want to worry about laws for selling food. I do have candle making supplies already, but didn't have a lot of luck sellig those online before... (I'm not very interested in making soaps either, & I do not need to buy more craft supplies!)

I am thinking of mostly making resin pendants. (Resin is like a hard plastic that dries clear to look like glass, or you can add color to it). A girl on craftgrrl just posted some resin pendants she bought that are really pretty. If anyone has any ideas/knowledge about how they colored and painted the resin pendants, please let me know!

Pendants would also be good because I could make many small molds with the amount of putty I have. I am thinking I can form a pendant with polymer clay and then make a mold for resin to make copies. I could also use the mold to make things with polymer clay, but I always worry about the durability.

So, my mail question is ~
What things do you think I could make with resin, clay, or one of the other items, that would sell well on my site? (think along the lines of patchwork wearing hippies)