Resin D'etre or What Can You Do With Spare Ceramic Tiles?

Good question!  Well, mine weren't exactly spare because I went to the home improvement store and bought some but this will work for anyone who has some ceramic tiles hanging around from a bath or kitchen renovation.

Flowers on Trellis

 Large Flower

Group of Hyacinths

Let me start from the beginning.  I have these alcohol inks that I bought some time ago.  If you've read any of my prior post, you'll know that I have all kinds of materials and supplies stashed away that I bought for no other reason than I might use them someday.  I think I bought the inks when I was in my card making phase but I'm not sure.  It could have been when I was in my let's try to dye polymer clay, or what can I dye with this phase.  Anyway, I had the inks and I stumbled on a video on You-Tube involving ceramic tiles and flaming alcohol inks.  I actually wrote another post about where I made a few pendants and a set of accent tiles.  If you're interested, you can read it here.  Burn The House Down!

This time I was going to make some ceramic tile coasters for my sister's birthday.  I actually tried to make the alcohol paintings look like something, instead of slopping the ink on and later deciding what shapes I saw.  I think I managed pretty well.  After the tiles were dry, I started with the resin.  For those of you that don't know, resin is extremely sticky!  It also requires precise measuring and mixing time to make it set right.

This is where the Resin D'etre comes in.  Alcohol inks will not stand up to hot, cold or wet environments.  I've done research looking for something that would make the inks impervious to their environment.  Pretty much the only thing I found was resin. I bought some Envirotex Jewelry Resin  The first time I used resin was for some ceramic pendants.  I was kind of nervous, since everything I read about resin indicated that it was difficult to use.  There was the whole precise measuring, then timed mixing and the pouring, oh the pouring!

Actually it wasn't that bad.  I measured out the resin in one of the little cups included in the kit.  Then I added the hardener.  One tip:   I marked the cups with a Sharpie to indicate the amount of each I needed.  You need equal part resin and hardener in order for the mixture to set right.

Then you have to stir it, and stir it, and stir it!  For at least two minutes.  You have to make sure that you stir and scrape the little cup, then stir and scrape some more.  After two minutes, you pour it into another little cup and stir and scrape  some more.  After another minute of additional  stirring, it's time to pour.

I was nervous at this stage.  I wasn't sure how much resin to pour on the pendant.  I had mixed up a total of 1 ounce of resin.  Would it be enough?  Would I have a half coated pendant?  It turns out it was more than enough.  It's a good thing I had a total of three pendants ready to go.  I used up all the resin I had mixed.

Now comes the really hard part.  I had read that you should put some kind of tape around the edges at the back of the piece.  That way any drips that you miss will come off with the tape.  Being an over-confident kind of gal, I figured I didn't need the tape.  I could just scrape any excess off, right?  Wrong!

I placed the pendants onto little inverted cups, so that any excess would drip off.  I had also lined the pan I was using with parchment paper.  So I poured away.  Resin immediately started to drip over the sides and collect underneath.  I was using one of the wooden stick included for stirring to scrape the drips but the pendants and the cups were so light that they kept getting away from me.  I did the best I could but the resin kept dripping and I kept wiping.  After the three pendants were coated, I set my timer for 25 minutes.  Although it says that the resin degasses itself, from all the bubbles I saw, I wasn't so sure.  By some miracle, I must have done everything right!  No bubbles and eventually the dripping stopped.

After 24 hours the resin had set but I had these big globs of resin on the underside of the pendants.  I sanded like mad, but never did remove all the globs of resin.  That's when my ingenuity (or desperation, if you like) kicked in.  I had some black leather that I had purchased for another project.  I cut circles to fit the pendants, glued them in place and problem solved!


Anemones Under The Sea Pendant 

Flower Garden Pendant 

Right now I'm working on a set of four ceramic tile coasters.  I feel more secure using the resin and I think that they are coming out beautifully.

In conclusion, like I've said before, if you want to try something new and out of your comfort zone, I say go for it.  You learn from every new endeavor, even if you fail.  Keep trying until you get it right!

Burn The House Down!

 Set of 3 Decorative Tiles

No, not really, but I have been playing with fire lately.  I found a video on You-Tube in which the author, a user called beetlewing, demonstrated how to use flame to intensify and change the manner in which alcohol inks react on ceramic tiles. Alcohol Inks Tutorial: Playing Wtih Fire  And since I've been playing with alcohol inks and various mediums lately, I decided to take a look.

His video is very good and he creates some wonderful pieces and since I  could only burn this particular  house down once, I decided I'd give it a go.  I found a wonderful ceramic artist who agreed to make me some glazed pendant blanks and I must insist  the blanks, tiles whatever, have to have a glaze on them, otherwise this technique won't work. Don't use any that say bisque fired.

 This particular ceramic artist's has a shop on Etsy called Pottery Heaven and while she doesn't normally sell pendant blanks, I contacted her on FaceBook and she agreed to make some for me.  Since I am naturally impatient when it comes to trying something new, I went to my local home improvement store and bought some 4.25 inch plain white ceramic square tiles, the kind you would use in a bathroom.

I already had the alcohol inks.  I don't know why I bought them in the first place, and I have used them on a few polymer clay pieces but they are so much more fun and work soooo much better on ceramic tiles!

Beetlewing on You-Tube used a cigarette lighter but I was afraid that using one would put my hand and clothing waaay to close to a live flame so I went out and bought a set of those lighters with the long nozzles that you use to light candles.  I used an old cookie sheet and I don't recommend baking cookies on it afterwards because mine is now covered with blobs and smears of dried alcohol ink and alcohol inks are pretty much permanent. 

I put the tile down on the cookie sheet, got out my alcohol inks and started squirting.  Let me say that alcohol inks dry really fast.  Luckily, newly applied alcohol inks can be removed from glazed ceramic tiles with rubbing alcohol.  I made lots of mistakes and had a lot of ugly tiles but finally I got my technique down pat.

I found that making sure the lighter was lit before applying the inks worked a lot better than trying to light the thing after the ink went down.  You should let each section of ink fully flame out before trying to apply more.  I couldn't figure out why one of my inks wasn't squirting out, until I looked at the bottle and realized that I had burned the tip closed!  I had to cut the tip and now it doesn't squirt out as fast as the others.  And here's a tip:  You can't really see the flame, the inks burn with an almost invisible blue flame.  So if you are going to try this, use caution and don't do it with little kids and/or pets around, especially cats or while wearing loose clothing!

I coated some of my pieces with resin (the first time I've ever used resin and that's a whole other story for another time).  

Here are a few more pieces I did.
Flower Garden Alcohol Ink and Resin Ceramic Pendant

 Anemones Under The Sea Alcohol Ink and Resin Ceramic Pendant

And these aren't quite ready.  They're still drying and I need to apply resin to them since they're destined to be a set of coaters.
I'm calling them Spring Garden since they are flower themed:

I recommend you try this technique.  It's fun!  Just don't burn the house down!