Not enough hobbies....

August 3rd 2021

Yup so I totally blew off July - I got distracted.  

I ended up catching up on a few other hobby things that I wanted to finish (I had bought two Japanese themed fat quarter fabric squares to use for some masks plus I had a some clothing that required mending) so I pulled out my sewing machine and did those things. Course, once you start something there’s always something else that needs fixing or mending too. Anyway, I got somewhat bored with going back to painting the last two panels so instead, I decided to dapple into something I have never done before.  UV curing resin.

Basically, you make objects out of gel that is cured (activated) under a UV light. It’s the exact same thing when you get a gel manicure.  So, I found a tutorial and bought a plate mold and some UV hardening gel and, of course, a cheap UV manicure light.  My first test was today.

So this is what I learned in my first test :

First UV plate test - learning experience...

• The mold needs a lot more gel in it than I thought it would. So, given the price of clear UV gel, I’m going to test making plates using UV gel nail polish. It comes in tons of colors so I won’t have to make my own (which I did in the test - I scraped some white chalk pastel into the clear gel and it came out grayish - not happy). Plus, I should be able to find it cheap at the dollar stores here (basically Chinese owned junk everything shops).
• Better to overfill the mold once I get cheap gel then trim the plates. Course, it’ll be important not to over cure the plate otherwise it’ll be too difficult to trim. So more tests to be made.

In any case, this gel stuff is pretty smelly and I have no idea if nail polish gel will respond the same so I’m fairly excited to make a few more tests.  In the meantime, here is a peek at what I am planning to put on my plates :

Deruta

Deruta

Della Robbia

Alcantara

Course my idea is to print them on decals but if I can cheaply make lot of plates I will try and decoupage them onto them - since finding decals will be another adventure as I have already checked into it.

And here is a nice recipe again with my favorite - lemon. I have been dieting since around my birthday in May so eating a lot less pasta but doesn’t mean you have to….