Fifth Anniversary - Waterproofing of quilled jhumkas - Tutorial and Review

Hello All,

Thank you so much for all the love you people have showered on us for past 5 years! It has been a roller coaster of a ride but what is life without some adventure thrown in!! Just like every year, we celebrate this anniversary with some love of sharing.........

All the crafters who make quilling jewellery groan (inwardly or otherwise) when their jewellery is compared with readymade, mass manufactured and impersonal alloy jewellery (most of it Made in China). We know the pain! Waterproofing of quilled jewellery has been its Achilles' Heel for a long time and most crafters struggle with answering the question: Will this jewellery get ruined when water falls on it?

We saw the problem for what it was. The customers want to make sure their money is worth it and the cost (of handmade jewellery) is justified too! So, we experimented with a host of resins and coating materials. The wall we kept hitting was: Importing the resin! Most resins available in India either had a short shelf like, or yellowed after some time! Since resin is susceptible to fire, it's transported via ships and that meant long waiting periods!

When Itsy Bitsy announced its line of resin (Lil Birdie: https://goo.gl/2EacL3 ), we seized the opportunity to try it on our quilled jhumkas..........we were a bit apprehensive as the reviews we had received so far said that the resin had a lot of bubbles upon mixing. We have worked around that problem and this video demonstrates how to use the resin on quilled jhumkas....

Happy Quilling Pritesh PS: If my posts inspire you to create something on similar lines, I feel highly flattered. But please, do respect the effort I take in conceptualizing and executing, please give a direct link to my work when you are inspired by mine. Thanks for understanding........:-)

Handling Casting Resin - A series of free tutorials

Hello All,

Here is a series of tutorials for using resin on paper jewellery. The resin is available with A1 Craft Supplies. You can contact them for purchasing the resin. I want to specially thank Richa Kapre of Rock, Paper and Scissor for her generous contribution to the knowledge in resin-handling.

My humble request to all users of resin: Resin handling is an exercise in patience. Hurrying the process with cause blotchy results. Please do read the instructions on your resin packaging carefully.

Part 1 - Preparation of surface for applying resin......

Very often, you are likely to encounter surfaces that have painted and drawn patterns on then. It is always better to cover the surface completely with a clear drying glue (like Fevicryl Fabric Glue, Camlin Crafty Glue or Faber Castell White Glue). Always allow for COMPLETE drying of the glue before you apply resin.

The base(s) can be prepared using the tutorial here.


Part 2 - Mixing Resin

Mixing the resin is the most crucial of all steps in the handling of resin. Unfortunately, very small things can be the make-or-break factors while handling resin. This video shows how one can mix resin. The key is to be patient and work slowly.

Part 3 - Applying resin on Enclosed Surfaces

Resin has most commonly been used for 'filling' up enclosed surfaces to create a "cabochon" like effect. This effect needs resin to be 'filled' in spaces. Though it may sound trivial, these very bubbles (in extreme cases, many small or large bubbles) can bring about "fogginess" to the resin coating and lead to bad finishing.

Part 4 - Popping the Bubbles

No amount of handling carefully can ensure zero bubbles. Mercifully, Richa has worked very hard at developing techniques to dispel these little jewellery spoilers :)

Part 5 - Coating a 3D surface (e.g. a jhumka)

One of the most common question I've been asked so far is, can resin be used to coat quilled jewellery. I'll answer it with a very reserved yes. I don't really know if it can be used on all types of quilling jewellery but it can be used on quilled jhumkas. How? Watch :) [Information courtesy: Richa]

Part 6 - Cleaning a resin coated brush

Since application of resin to a 3D surface needs a brush to be used and one wouldn't want to lose the brush, cleaning of that brush is imperative. Here is the video for how you can clean the brush after using it for coating the 3D surface(s)

Part 7 - Getting "Concave" effect on an enclosed surface

Such quilled outlines can be prepared using the quillography tutorial...........

Part 8 - Getting Concave effect on an unenclosed surface

The videos are property of Pritesh (Art'zire) and Richa (Rock, Paper and Scissor). Please do not report them as your own and whenever sharing, kindly give due credits.

Happy Quilling

 Pritesh

 PS: If my posts inspire you to create something on similar lines, I feel highly flattered. But please, do respect the effort I take in conceptualizing and executing, please give a direct link to my work when you are inspired by mine. Thanks for understanding........:-)