 Hey guys, how are you today? All right, we are going to discuss memorial beads of which these are some What are memorial beads some memorial beads are Traditionally beads that are made out of dried flower petals From flowers you've received because of a special event so most especially like flowers that you get when somebody passes away and You dry the flower petals and then make them into beads now Traditionally you just mix the dried flower petals with a few other things basically turn them into a clay and make beads I thought well, why can't you just use resin? This is a 21st century and mix them with some resin maybe a little glitter and so of course yes, you can cuz see So I'm gonna show you how I did this I will preface this by saying I am by no means a resin expert I am just playing and Pouring round beads is really difficult to get them perfect. They're just not going to be perfect and you have to be okay with that pouring something that's flat on the back like these dragon eggs that I've done before in previous videos and The wings feathers these are much easier. I also have a square bead mold That's much easier. It does have one side. That's kind of not perfectly flat You could of course sand this down and then polish it. I don't want to be bothered So I probably never will and I'll probably just use it the way it is I don't mind that it's imperfect. I also have a mold that does a Resin replica of a crystal so you could do a memorial crystal all of these were all done the same way with just different molds So I'm going to show you how I did them. I'm going to get everything set up and I'll be right back Okay, the first thing you're going to need of course are dried flower petals There's you know, you could buy them you could just go pick them if your Husband or partner gives you a flower bouquet for say Valentine's Day or your anniversary You could save some flower petals and dry them. These are dried rose petals. They're from I have a bag of dried I have a drawer of nature stuff And this is one of the things in the drawer These are dried rose petals from a few different places my grandmother's funeral bouquets my husband has gotten me things like that and So I'm going to just pull a couple petals out and stick them in this little small paper cup These they're too big the way they are To make beads out of so you need to crunch them up and or cut them up So the first thing I'll do is just crunch them up with my fingers I really should get some kind of a grinder or something at some point Would be really handy if I'm going to keep doing this Okay, then I'm going to just take a little pair of scissors and I'm going to just spend it couple Seconds here Chopping them up in the cup Which helps you keep them sort of all contained. You want to get them as small as possible If you're making these beads I will leave a link in the description for these molds. I bought them on Amazon I will tell you like I said already the round bead mold is challenging Okay, so you want something that's like chopped up like that at least that small if not smaller as small as you can get it is better Okay So if you're going to need some of those you're going to need some glitter I chose red to go with the dark red purpley color of the flower petals. You're going to need some Epoxy resin. I'm using easycast clear casting epoxy I've got some molds and you're going to need a cup to mix in and you're going to need some popsicle sticks and Gloves you should wear gloves anytime you're working with something like resin You should have your fan on and be working in a well ventilated area even though this isn't a low odor product from easycast Always take precaution and I'm working over a non-stick mat so that any bits and pieces that fall on here and dry on here I actually can peel them off and I might be able to actually use these in you know as an embellishment on some other future project Because you know I'm not going to throw it away It's interesting Don't make fun of me All right Now these are of course the two molds I said I had I have the square and the round The square one is much easier to do because you just pour it straight in the round one is a lot more challenging to do This resin takes 48 hours to completely cure So I have found after doing a couple batches that I like to take the beads out after 24 hours They're hard enough to pull out of the mold, but they're still a bit flexible and the beads will have let me find one From this morning's pull So they that no matter how careful you are with pouring them the beads are going to have like a flat spot Can you see that and I'm okay with them not being perfect? But because they're still kind of soft I can actually take my finger around the edge of that flat spot And I can push that ridge down a little bit and just smooth it out a bit. So it's less obvious Oops, there we go. So it's just less obvious. And then it's something that yeah, I'm okay with All right, so now we're going to mix our resin. So you want to do equal parts of part a and the hardener I have actually a little scale here. We're gonna put the cup on there And I have a number of different molds So I just kind of wing it as far as how much resin I need and I'm gonna be adding stuff to it So you don't have to do it that way You could fill your mold with water and then dump that into a cup to measure how much That'll give you an idea of how much resin you need to fill the mold I'm gonna just wing it. That's what I've been doing all right, so I'm gonna pour this I'm gonna shoot for like 0.3 ounces To those are important Okay, so now we want equal amount of the hardener So I'm gonna pour it until it's a six Then I'm gonna mix it for two minutes So you want to make sure you mix it thoroughly According to the package directions. This one says to mix it for two minutes You want to make sure it's really well mixed or it's probably it's not gonna harden properly If you don't With the round mold you you never really completely get all the air bubbles out even though this is one a Kind of epoxy that's supposed to I Want to say out gas. I don't think that's the right term Release the air bubbles on its own. They're supposed to like automatically rise to the surface I find that the round with the round mold. They just don't they get trapped You can release a few of the air bubbles of the torch Lightly over the mold, but you won't ever get them all you just have to kind of be okay with that because I add glitter and things to the mix It's not that big a deal because the bulk the bubbles don't really show up With the way I make the beads with the square ones. You have more surface on the top of the bead So you can really Get rid of all of the air bubbles easily They're much more clear of a bead than the round ones. I got lucky with the Ones that look like crystals to be honest with you Less than a minute make sure you're like scraping the sides and getting everything out that last minute It's like seems like it's a long time. There we go Okay, now you're supposed to like transfer it to another cup and then Stir it some more and I never do that. I just use the same cup I'm gonna dump all my flower petals in that I have I'm gonna dump in a variety of glitters and Microbeads these are red microbeads So I just grabbed a bunch of the stuff. I have you know kind of been hoarding for a while and There's no recipe just dump some in a few different colors of red different textures of glitter and Then give it another stir. You want to have it be really well mixed Make sure again that you scrape the sides And I have something that's really dark see that so we are going to do the round mold these other multi-side and We're gonna zoom in so this is how I've been doing this This mold is really tough to fill. I'll be honest with you is really tough to fill So you're gonna need your stick So see this little this little post in the middle That's the part that the resin dries around to give you the hole in the middle of your bead So when I'm filling it initially, I put I take my stick and I push pull the little post to the side And then I try really hard to just drip it in But you always end up with a like blob on the top like that so then I take another stick and push it in and then you keep doing that until that Part of the mold is full and then you move to the next one. It takes a few minutes There's really no shortcut the square one is really easy to fill the round one is hard more challenging and Mostly because I put so much stuff in the resin. I think if I was just pouring clear Resin or tinted resin without the flower petals in it. It wouldn't be so hard to fill it You do want to fill it all the way to the top and it's really hard to get it to where It's just enough to the top to give you a nice round bead and not too much to the top where you're gonna get A flat spot that's the trick to it. I've poured these a couple of times and I'm still figuring that perfect place out I think you just have to practice So now we'll go to the next one. So I'm gonna fill these as far as this resin will let me go and I'll be right back Okay, so I got seven round beads Out of that. I'm going to tap the molds on the table that will in theory help me release some of the air bubbles Then I'm going to take my little torch and Really quickly and really lightly just run it over the top here and pop some of the bubbles Keep your fingers out of the way do it really quickly There we go, and that's the best you're gonna be able to do You could probably come back and a little while and try to do it again and get some more bubbles But I found that it doesn't really make that big of a difference So you need to let this dry for 24 hours before even try and unmold them And like I said once you do unmold them, you will probably have a little ridge or a flat spot It'll still be soft enough though to push down on that with your finger And you'll get something that looks like this with all the glitter and flower petals embedded inside of it If you get resin on your craft mat, that's wet. I recommend you take a piece of scrap paper and push it down into the wet resin and Leave it sit here for at least 24 hours and let it cure and When you peel it up, you're gonna have an interesting piece of resin paper that you can use in your mixed media So this is just my way of playing with resin again. I am by no means an expert There are some great channels out there that really do know what they're doing much more than I do I'm gonna link one of them in the description below and I will Continue playing with my resin and sharing with you what I find I hope that you've enjoyed this video if you want to be a member of one of my two Facebook groups or Support my channel by shopping in the Etsy shop. Send me happy mail Send me an email any of those things look in the video description because the information how to do all that is down there and Please like share and subscribe and the most important thing go out and have a great day everybody Do something nice for yourself because you deserve it and I'll see you later. Bye guys