What I liked best about the Bead & Button Show was a class taught by Susan Lenart Kazmer! Over the past years I’ve taken several of her classes and they always inspire me to get back in the studio and work with metal and resin! “Resin, Relics, and Ancient Artifacts: Casting Resin” is the class I took last week. It was only three hours in length so there wasn’t enough time to complete a piece, but we explored mold-making and I left class with several molds and two cast resin components. 
Although I have been working with resin off and on for several years, I learned tips and tricks and discovered endless possibilities for making unique art forms by applying paint, mixing in alcohol inks, and altering the finished resin casting with carving! Upon arriving back in my studio, I couldn’t resist the temptation to get out my Ice Resin®, molding compound, inks and dyes, paints, accent powders, and ephemera and start to play! 
I love the large urchin and stone castings. These measure over 2″ in diameter and will be wonderful focal pieces used in pendants and/or brooches! 
The upper left and lower right components in the above photo measure a little over 1″ in diameter and have been accented with inks and paint. The center component contains a 27mm Swarovski Crystal…the photo doesn’t show the depth and brilliance, but it truly looks like an orange opal! The lower left and upper center components are faux quartz crystals. I plan to use them as focal “stones” in rings! And what did I do with the resin heart-shaped component I brought home from class?
I used it as a focal in this pendant! My mixed-media “Talisman” Pendant is composed of polymer clay (twig and serpents), fine silver and bronze metal clay components, sterling silver wire, carnelian, green jasper, and resin!
