If you are a crafter of any sort, you’ve probably heard of epoxy or otherwise known as resin. You probably only really associate it with various kinds of glues and you’re right! Epoxy is a type of glue, but it is so much more and can be used for so much more. Just like anything else in a crafter’s arsenal, your creativity doesn’t have to extend only to the materials you are working with, but also the tools that you are using.
Resin is actually a naturally forming substance in trees, and it is a very special material that, as we learned in Jurassic Park, could even trap dinosaur DNA for millennia. Resin is a non-water soluble liquid, that when hardened is very dense and difficult to break apart naturally. This can be a useful crafting tool in so many ways other than just gluing things together.
Sealant
There are clear epoxies you can purchase from most high-end craft stores by the gallon that you mix and pour over a well-framed off painting or collage. If the contents of the collage and or painting are treated correctly, the clear resin fills in any gaps between the canvas and the materials you have attached to the canvas all the way to the frame you have built for it and creates a perfectly clear plexiglass fused cover for your work.
Mold Sculptures
Similar to the above use, you can pour this clear or colored resin into a mold of any sort, and once dry, you will have a perfectly clear and hard plastic figurine of whatever you molded. If you decide to go with a clear resin, you can fill it with various items as well, and it will free those items as if in midair within the resin. This is frequently a technique used to preserve butterflies and insects for future analysis. If you use colored resin or epoxy, then you can mix and match colors and create beautiful multicolored sculptures. This company creates beautiful cell phone cases by using this technique along with pieces of wood.
Creating Epoxy Forms for Wordsmithing and Construction
You may or may not have seen these videos on YouTube, but people have recently started to arrange colored pencils or various other items into large framed shapes and pour clear epoxy into the frame. What this does is create a large chunk of plastic with perfectly aligned colored pencils, that can later be used to saw through and fashioned into a base for anything such as a guitar or any other sculpture you would construct from a large chunk of wood. Get creative, freeze whatever you want into a large block, and then put it on a lathe and make a clear plastic bowl out of it!
Epoxy is a very special substance that can be used in many different and creative ways. The key is to discover what works for you, and always think outside the box. If you need something that you don’t have, make it with resin! Resin can take the shape of anything and hold it forever… that seems like it could be useful right? Now go create!
