Fran Valera of Little Windows is back with another fabulous resin jewelry supplies giveaway and a special discount for all (see below)! This time I got a chance to review one of their latest products - a
large round silicon cabochon mold which yields many half spheres of different sizes. It's just one of a number of great products from Little Windows.
Little Windows' resin is excellent - glass like results which is perfect for jewelry makers. It is a very different formulation than others. The proportion to mix is not 1:1 but 2 parts of A to 1 part of B. The B part does deteriorate with time (turns yellow) so if you are not a frequent resin user, you can purchase a new B separately. Other resin manufacturers don't offer this.
I also like their silicon products. I bought their
silicon doming tray which is fabulous because all spills, once cured, can just be popped away. The new cabochon mold I received has several advantages. First there are multiples of the same size. This helps when making sets of cabochons for earrings and bracelets. Or simply to make resin jewelry efficiently in batches. Silicon molds do not require mold release and those accidental spills can be easily removed the same way as the molded resin itself - just pop them out!
Little Windows has an incredible
number of creative video tutorials - that was how I came across them. I've also linked my favorite resin photo jewelry tutorials below.
Watch Fran's how to video which shows many ideas for this cabochon mold. You are not limited to resin. Consider using this mold for resin clay and polymer clay too. Other non-jewelry uses include soap, candle and candy making but please dedicate the mold for a particular use.
The cabochon mold performed beautifully! I had a lot of fun making dried dandelion clock and flower jewelry. The mold is a good way to use for dried flowers which have depth - especially the dandelion clock - as opposed to flat pressed flowers. The tutorial for how to dry them using a very economical method will appear later this week.
You can drill holes into the cabochons for jump rings as shown in Fran's video. Also check out
my review of their spiral ratchet hand drill here. If you aren't confident with electric drills, consider this kind of manual drill.
Instead of drilling holes into the cured cabochons, I used bezels as well as wire wrapping to finish them off.
I had some
misadventures learning experiences when I was embedding the dandelion and flowers into the resin which I will also share later this week. The third tutorial for the wire wrapped dandelion clock resin pendant will be a separate post so each post will not be overlong.
Giveaway If you'd like to win
$50 worth of resin jewelry making supplies from Little Windows, please make a comment below. Make sure you leave contact info below if you do not have an online shop or blog.
Little Windows is
offering a special 15% off discount for all readers! Use this code :
BeadingGem Email subscribers need to scroll down the post they receive, click on Share Comment and enter your comment. Pick Name/URL. If you don't have a store or blog, leave the URL blank.
This giveaway is for US and Canadian readers only. Extra entries if you become or are a blog subscriber or follower etc. If you also do shout outs about this giveaway, those will count as additional entries too! Please say so in the comments.
It
ends in a week's time at 6 pm EST Monday, November 2, 2015 . I will pick the winner randomly and announce the results as soon as possible after. So be sure to leave a contact email if you don't have an online link or make sure you come back and check! Otherwise I will redraw in a week. Good luck!
Disclosure Photography All images were captured using my iPhone 5, the camera+ app and the Modahaus TS320 Tabletop Photo Studio in natural light. Photo editing was done in-app with final tweaks in Adobe Photoshop Elements. One challenge with photographing resin cabochons are the light reflections so I tried different poses to minimize them.
Click for more information on my
How to Photography Jewelry Webinar.
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