How to Incorporate Organic Matter into 2-Part Resin by Becky Nunn

Note: This audio transcript is auto-generated and may not be completely accurate.
This is Becky Nunn from Nunn Design, guest designer for Beadaholique.com In this video I'd like to show you how you can embed organic matter into an open back bezel to create fun places such as this. What you'll need is an Nunn Design open-back bezel, some two-part resin I've already pre mixed this and let it sit for 5 minutes so I'm ready to go you'll want a couple of extra stir cups, some items to use such as a tongue depressor this is a coffee stir stick that I cut up and a toothpick, your organic matter two pieces that I just found in the woods, a pair of scissors, tape, I have some business cards and two little pieces of wax paper, To apply the tape onto the back of the pendant, I'm choosing to use very thick type of shipping tape this is your Uline tape but it's a very very thick tape. I've found that a different lighter weights might leave a little bit more of a weight and cut off a piece, make sure that I very carefully did not leave any of my fingerprints anywhere on the surface where the bezel is going to go take your bezel, press it down on there and then I just scoot it around like this to burnish it onto place making sure that it has the right even contact on all parts on the bezel to make sure that the resin doesn't pour out the sides once I start to do the pour the resin in. The next step is to start to prepare my organics that are going to fit inside of my bezel. Before I put them emerged into my open back bezel, I wanna go ahead and treat them with the resin themselves so my resin is already have been premixed I have laid down on the table some wax paper and I also put some wax paper underneath the business cards I like to do that just so it makes it easy for me to transport the items around and not touch them once they're wet I don't know about you guys but I have a very small work surface and so I often need to move things around in order to clear space. So I'm just going about the whole surface to treat your organic what I have found is if I do this it helps prevent there to be air bubbles in the resin once I embed it inside of the piece you definitely want to be not doing as I do you want to wear a pair of gloves when you're implying this resin onto the pieces and handling the pieces that have resin on them. Just drizzling the resin right onto the pieces and I'm not worrying about the fact that it's going to spill over onto the paper that's why I have the wax paper and I'll be constantly checking it so that it doesn't stick to the paper itself and I'm also making sure that I don't get a lot of the organics onto my stir stick and then contaminating my resin We're going to be using the upper part. So you just let that sit there and I come back about every five minutes or so and I double check by picking it up and I might move it to another place so it'll pool onto a different area I have a bigger work surface over here so I might move it over here and then when I'm done I'll bring it back over to my portable surface. Once my organics have dried you'll have a nice piece like this I went ahead and trimmed off the bottom end because I'm want to put it right inside of the pendant inside here. What I've found is it's helpful to place it inside of the bezel attach it onto the tape so that it doesn't rise and float on the surface so I'm just pressing it down gently and adhering it onto the tape. Now I'm ready to pour in my resin by drizzling it into the bezel and I'm going slow just to cover and fill in all of those areas around where the organics are so that I can make sure that the resin is pressed down inside of there and that will help me prevent from the air bubbles surfacing take your time fill the bezel. I'm not pressing too hard I don't want my organics to chip or fray and then just keep on drizzling until your bezel is full and pay attention to the little air bubbles that are surfacing and bringing them over on the side and dissipate on their own. So the thing about two-part resin and embedding things is this is something that you're gonna want to commit some time to you gonna wanna not do it in a hurry. You're going to want to make sure that you have designated some time to really babysit your piece because bubbles well and can surface to the surface and you're just gonna want to keep on watching for them so that you can pop them either by putting your toothpick in there and moving them over to the side and popping them. I'm not gonna fill my piece really really full I'm under filling and if I wanted to have a nice dome I would first let this piece dry babysitting it and having plenty of room to go in there into address any bubbles that might be happening with my toothpick but if I feel it too high if I stick my toothpick in there, then I will overflow the side edges. You just under fill it and then you're going to spend some time paying attention to what's happening with the piece whether you're having some air bubble surface or not and by curing the piece of organic first you're preventing a lot of the air bubbles that would come up so it takes depending on where you are it depends on the time that it's going to take to cure this but you wanna look at your manufacturer's directions. It could take up to 72 hours to cure what I do is just take a little plastic cup and place it over the top of your piece and you wanna set the timer so that you can come back like every 15 minutes and just double check that you don't have any air bubbles forming on your piece. You want to be careful not press it down to hard too on the tape there just coming back and taking a look if you have any air bubbles and place it down until it's hardened After your piece is finished you'll just take off the tape from the backside and you'll have a finished piece that you can add all kinds of fun charms and fibers and make a nice necklace. This piece was created by Nunn Design Innovation team member Sharon Borsavage I love this piece. I just think it's so pretty. She's so talented. This is Becky Nunn from Nunn Design. I hope you've enjoyed learning how to embed organics into our open back bezels using two part resin. Go to www.beadaholique.com to purchase beading supplies and to get design ideas!