Michon Jewelry Blog

Resin is an alternative material that is gaining popularity with jewelry and mixed media artists. There are many different brands of resin available for artists and crafters to experiment with.

The basics are the same though - follow the mixing instructions given by the manufacturer (resins come with two parts - resin and hardener - that have to be mixed together to startt he curing process - but the mixing ratios vary by brand), pour, drip or paint resin where you want it, and wait at least 24 hours, but often 72 hours, for the resin to completely cure.

I recently took a one-day workshop with mixed media jewelry artist Susan Lenart Kazmer on using resin, and I enjoyed it so much that I’ve been experimenting a lot on my own since the class with different ways to use resin in my jewelry work.

Some uses for resin:

• Filling a bezel - this is something we did in class. It is one of the easiest ways to start playing with resin. You take a bezel - which could be a traditional bezel made from silver, or a small found object like a beer bottle cap. Then you add small pieces of paper or found objects inside the bezel and cover them with resin. Once dry, you can drill a hole through the piece to make a pendant or earring dangle.
• Filling a mold - similar to filling a bezel, molds are available commercially (or can be created by the artist - but that’s a topic for another time) and filled with resin and small objects the same way bezels are filled. The difference is that when the resin is cured, it is removed from the mold, resulting in a very different effect.
• Covering objects - this is a little bit harder than filling molds and bezels, but objects can be covered in resin. I have successfully done this by painting thin layers of resin onto small objects and allowing each layer to cure before painting on the next layer. It is a very time consuming process, and it can be difficult to do without ending up with drips, but is also a means to create very unique pieces, as well as preserving small organic objects, such as small sticks. I heard about an art exhibit where parts of a human corpse were preserved in resin - definitely not something I’d ever want to attempt! But, it gives you an idea of what a versatile material resin is.

One of the things that is appealing to me about working with resin is that it is a relatively new material. There aren’t very many experts on working with resin, so every experiment I do is exciting. Unlike working with silver, a material I can ask thousands of experts for advice on, most people working with resin today are just starting to discover it and try new things. And it is so different from metalwork, yet easily combines with the metalwork I do. Silver bezels can be filled with resin to add color, texture, even images to what would otherwise be a very simple piece of jewelry.

I plan to write project tutorials for working with resin in the near future, but my advice to anyone thinking about trying resin is to experiment. Gather together some bezels, or found objects that could work as bezels, purchase some resin (the brand I use is called Colores and is available from Rio Grande), and see what you can come up with filling your bezels with the resin and small found objects. Color can be added by mixing in colored powders, such as the mica powders used by stampers. Almost any object small enough to put in a bezel can be embedded in resin. There aren’t many teachers right now doing resin workshops, but if you can find one, it’s a great introduction to the material, and having someone show you step by step how to mix, pour, color, etc. can be helpful.