 Hi, I'm Cynthia for Albi Sadkan with Bakey Nod from Nondesign. Hi, Hi Ricky. Hi. And today you're showing us another technique. I'm going to show you another technique. Cool one? I think it is. This one that took me a while to figure out. It's how to embed organics into resin, a two-part resin. And there's lots of bad information out there. There's a lot of no information out there. We're just trying to figure out what's the best way to preserve flowers to put into resin. And I have Sam still figuring it out too. Some things I've just learned to deal with. You know it's like, okay, we're going to have bubbles when we do that. But here's some ideas that I have and ways in which you can preserve your flowers. Okay, great. So let's start with, you know, first talking about, we're going to do some projects where we show how you can embed organics inside keep sakes like this. We can also show how you can do them into an open-back bezel like this and how you can use them into an open-back bezel like this. Okay. So what you're going to want to do first is to preserve your flowers. And some of the ways in which I have found that preserves flowers really well is using a silicon gel. And I've been, I tried out this silicon gel. It's a flower-drying art and it comes in different pounds you can purchase. And this is ideal for like, using for wedding flowers or funerals or anything that you want to preserve. It's very simple to do. You just take a Tupperware container and put a layer of the silicon gel down and then lay your flowers down in it. So we put a layer down then we would lay our flowers or another layer on top and you just build multiple layers inside the gel. Okay. And inside the silicon gel and you let it dry for the amount of time on the packaging it has like, first different types of flowers. It takes different types along different durations of time. So mine were about three days. It took to dry them. And when what happens in that process is it wicks all of the moisture out of the flowers leaving it completely intact with the same color that it went in. Another way to do it, so that's one. And another way to do it is to let them dry naturally like on the windowsill, your house and the natural sun will dry them. It tends to darken the color of it. You can see they're kind of you know withered a little bit versus a piece that was dry with the silicon gel. It's completely intact like you would see here. It doesn't even seem like it's dry actually. No, but it's bone dry. It's very very dry. It feels like paper. Okay. And this gel we can find in any craft store, right? I'm not sure exactly where all you can find it. It's in any craft store store but you can definitely look in any kind of craft store. The third way is like organics that are like a seed pod, you know, that doesn't have a lot of coloration. It's not really translucent to start with. It's more of a hard shell. The third way you can also coat your pieces is with a resin spray. This is something that you could also purchase at you probably could purchase at most craft stores. It is very stinky. So you would definitely want to be outside when you use this but it is a resin spray. It provides a nice high gloss finish to well resin pieces. It's also used for that. Like you know like when you pour resin and sometimes when you pull it out of something like a mold or something like that it's dull. Yes. You spray this on there and it makes it nice and glossy. Okay. So but it's great for applying onto organics so that it seals it completely coated. Some of the reasons why there are issues with air bubbles and such in the resin is because there's moisture in there. Other things that happen is there's air trapped inside like in a flower petal. For example down inside of there there could be like a little air pocket. And let me see I have a really good example of... Oh here's an example. I don't know if you can see this but down in here I have in the base I put a couple of little shells and so there was air trapped inside the little shells and then so the air pockets start to release and depending on when it releases in that process when the resin is just poured it's very thin still but as it starts to set it's harder and harder for those air bubbles to pop out and to rise to the surface and pop. So and even on something like that we wouldn't think that there is any moisture but you still have to seal it. You can just put in the resin like that. I highly recommend you do because it can also... the resin is very oily and it can darken the natural color of the piece. Other things that you can do is you can actually take your organics and maybe not so much these flowers but like a branch or something like that and you can actually drizzle the resin over it and get it coated first and then put it inside of your piece. So the whole purpose is trying to detach the air from the surface of whatever you're embedding because like bark and you know on a branch or something like that or on a twig might have air pockets inside of there. All right so I have some pieces here that I've already I've already preserved. I used the silicon gel for these and for these little guys right here I did the same I used the silicon gel so I'm going to pull off like this is a dogwood tree it blooms this time well actually we're such an early blooming season it's already bloomed and done. I have taken a couple of the different open-back bezels that we have at Nundesign and you would just take your organic and you would just place it right inside of there and I'm just lightly touching it and that allows enough of the there's tape there so it's attaching the organics to that tape. If I didn't do that I would have to do two pores of the resin because what would happen is that little organic will float to the surface and you know I might end up doing that anyway because you can see on these they they they're they're are a little bit high the volume of the bud was a little bit bigger so sometimes if you do have that you do need to put a second pore on there to cover up the surface but here's a good example you can see that it's it's fully covered. Then on this one here I used a little different part of the flower and you can use a pair of scissors or you can use a pair of needle-nose pliers and just cut off the stem and so there's very minimal amount of the stem that is showing such a pretty feeling. Isn't that pretty? And then in the bezel is really pretty. Right and then I'm just going lay that down into if I had a pair of needle-nose pliers I could probably lay that down into there more carefully but we're just going to place it in like this and then with a toothpick you can go in and position it and get it just right to where you want it. Okay and make sure you stick to the tape. Then one I have found is if it doesn't if you don't if it does a stick to the tape you just will have it'll it'll raise up a little bit and you just put a second pore over the top of it. On these pieces here I embedded already this flower that I had done in the silicon gel. I placed it in there and then I poured a little bit of resin into the base. That is then cementing it to the bottom of the piece. So I don't have to worry about that piece floating up. These I've already done that first pore width and I pulled the tape off the back and I cleaned it up but you can see that it's nice and smooth on the back when when you pull these out that's what's going to be behind this one because you can see the backside already so there's already a first pore in there and now I'm going to pour the second pore over the top. So we're going to go ahead and work with a couple of these right now. So I've already mixed some two parts resin and you have some videos showing how you can do that. I have some wet wipes right here in my in my lap. I always have wet wipes handy when I'm working with resin. I taped my pieces down to onto the backside and we covered that into another video about how to do that and what else do we need to do? Just pour. We need to pour or drizzle and not doing like me. Was that I tend to just pour very quickly but I still have you have another way. Well I like to go slow so especially because this is such a fragile flower those little antennas that were on there that are sticking up. We're going to want to make sure that you know we're not going to weigh them down too much so just by drizzling a little bit into the middle and then continuing to just add more and that petal was actually coming up so I'm making sure that I have plenty of resin underneath that petal. And if you get some on the side we can go back and we'll clean that up before we get to the very top and really dome it. So it's so neat to be able to put something organic in the bezel. Especially if it's wetting flowers or something that is you know capturing a memory or a moment or maybe even for your daughter you can give her her prom flowers or you know making something fun like that. So before we get too too full here I'm going to go ahead and wipe that edge with that little resin that had spilt over and just bring it up to whatever level that you want it to be. If you want it to be like a flat or if you want it to be higher domed just keep on drizzling resin into it until you get just that right height. And resin is self-doming so you can overpour but it it wants to it'll get to that top surface and you see how it's starting to dome higher and higher just a little teeny bit more. I really like your new very deep bezel because it's so much fun. So if you want to you can go ahead and take your toothpick and bring it over to that side edge. I already had some already spilled right there so I can just go ahead and move that resin around with my toothpick. And a really good idea to do that I didn't before you get to this point is to come into the piece and kind of gently poke in around here to make sure that you don't have any resin down inside of those you're being very very gentle with the flower but you're kind of just going in along the sides of the flower and just gently touching to make sure that there isn't any air pockets down in there. And then pour another you can pour another hit over the top and just bring it up even higher if you want to. On this piece right here I already had done that process so I would just fill that one. Then on these what you want to do is take so I can see on this even even being extremely careful. You can see there are some tiny little air bubbles just that that blossom was closed and there was a tiny bit of air right coming out but I think it looks it looks neat. You know what one is around your neck you don't really see it. If someone would see it it's way too close to you. That's a good t-shirt if you can see your bubbles in my resin you're way too close. That's funny. Okay so then on these same process I I went ahead and poured a little bit into the base and that is securing it down so you're going to want to be really careful on these and you just slowly drizzle it down into the piece and you can wipe that up later if you want. I'm surprised how the leaves also really stay. I was thinking oh I want to do the crumball and the well but it's too... yeah it does stay. I mean I think that no they're just yeah they're just staying completely I mean this is it's like paper in there right now. It has it does have a fragilness to it but it's bone dry and it's also very stiff. So anyway you get the idea. You're going to fill it for a while just taking your time and bringing it up a little bit higher. Then you might want to take a little break take a toothpick hopefully this one's not too stuck onto that paper and my fingers. Take a toothpick and you're going to want to go down inside of here just like we poked around see like there's a nice bubble right here so we're going to poke around inside of here and just see if we can get any of that air to release out of any of those cavities and being you know careful because see there's one right there and you're just going to move it around and try to dislodge it as best as you can but honestly at some point you just need to be it's going to have air bubbles because that's just kind of what happens to this sort of medium. I really like to do sea themes because then you don't have to worry about supposed to have bubbles in there. Then you just continue to fold you just keep on pouring and pouring until you get to about this level and then you just let it cure like overnight and you should be good to go. Oh this is so great I love it. Oh it is super fun and then what I love what you say at the beginning is you went with your delta in the garden and pick up flowers with flowers. Yeah it's also seasonal thing it's something that we do like we went harvesting and like the dogwood that it's not a dogwood it's um oh I can't remember the name and the tree in my yard but it only blooms once a year and it's this time and um you gather the blooms and blossoms while it was still there and then it's gone but I have a little bit of it and to incorporate in my jury. That's great and great also if you want to keep some memories right and you go on a trip or you go to the beach and you want to remember that beach you can grab some shell and do the same. Yes Adamine. Yeah and wow great I thank you so much for all this technique. It's fun. It was really really fun to to see that and thank you for preparing us today and baba abiyato Ciao thank you