Valentine’s Day -Hometown Love

     HomeMade resin heart necklace.

This Feb 14th I’m boomerang-ing some love to where I came from and back. With a  Valentine’s gift to myself.

This heart shaped necklace was made from an historic map of Canada print-out a print out, an empty heart bezel and some clear polymer resin.

WARNING: This post is going to have some strange words in it. Words like Bezel, Resin, Polymer Casting and activator.  Don’t be intimated.

Bezel is just an empty casing that’s used for making jewelry. (the silver thingy)

Resin is a hard plastic coating you find on top.  You actually can get the liquid form and pour it yourself, allowing even a novice like me to and incase absolutely anything.

Thanks to Carmi Cimicata from www.iloveresin.com who sent me the bezel and the challenge. Make anything you want using the heart bezel below.

This is what I started with.

It was intimidating, very intimidating. But…wow. Very cool and very simple.

I put a lot of thought into what should be incased into this little heart and kept coming back to the idea of a vintage map.

I’m from Kingston, Ontario Canada and my family has roots in the Algonquin first nation, we also lived in Montreal for a while.  So when I started researching the perfect old maps the words Algonquin, Kingston and Montreal fit perfectly in the amount of room this bezel allowed.

I love the colours and didn’t have to doctor a thing. Here’s how I did it. After printing out the map,  and cutting out the heart a number of times, first too big, then too small, then too wonky. Necessity is the mother of invention.  So rather than continue to trace it with a pencil I stamped the bezel, for a truer size.

This way I could cut just to the inside of the stamp mark for a perfect fit.

Prior to pouring any resin on your paper into your bezel, you need to set it. I used white glue that would dry clear underneath and over top. I thought it would be fine, but I should have used ModPodge, or maybe there’s something more appropriate I don’t know of? If anyone knows, share! I don’t feel like the setting was done very well.

Anyway, next came the scariest part.  Mixing the Resin.  I felt like a sick chemist. oh ya.  But, really I just followed the instructions and amazingly it worked.  It was actually easy.  But it REALLY SMELLS.

Add appropriate amount of resin with the appropriate number of drops of activator and stir for 60secs. Then hold your breath (cause it really stinks) or better yet, go outside or wear a mask. Then, pour.

I let it sit for 24 hours and it came out beautifully.  I just LOVE it.

I could never have ever bought something as personal.  It’s why I love love love making things.

I bought a long metal chain and lobster claws from DeSerres ($2.99) which officially turned this into a real necklace.

HomeMade resin heart necklace.

Pretty great I think. Thanks for the inspiration Carmi Cimicata, now iloveresin!