Resin Respite...

During an hour or so yesterday when the house wasn't being shaken off it's foundations, I managed to block out the noise with my MP3 player and get on with a couple of projects.  These pendants have been hanging around for months with no decoration - I wasn't sure what I wanted to put inside them.  I had bought some Gel Du Soleil way back in the winter without realising it needed strong sunlight to set it - something that has been in quite short supply in the UK the past few months!

So, by way of experiment, I painted the little meadow flower picture with acrylic paint and then dropped the resin on top and ran upstairs to put it on the sunniest windowsill.  It looked pretty cool when wet and I only had to wait fifteen minutes before it set.  That inspired me to paint another one - one of my stock jellyfish.  Resin dripped, run upstairs, put on windowsill and go and do something else for a bit.  (I varnished the tiny teaset which I have now decorated - that will come tomorrow as it needs a second coat.)

The resin has brought out the colours of the paint really well.  The only thing that went a bit wrong was that I had left a tiny gap between the Fimo backing and the brass and some of the resin had slipped through, thus making the top layer concave rather than convex - next time I will make sure the edges are completely
sealed.

I really enjoyed making these and want to do more but as the painting is so tiny, I need to wait until I pick up my new glasses next week as seeing the detail was a tad difficult!

We still had plenty of noise yesterday, with a few earth-shaking bangs, but we also got this:

No gate yet, but at least our garden is more or less enclosed once again.  There is a rather large gap and drop at the base of the fence as the pit the other side is a good two feet deep, so I will have to cover exposed roots with some earth today and make sure the plants don't dry out until the level is brought back up again.  And it's the weekend - two whole days free of JCB action, and the promise that it will continue for only half a day on Monday.  Maybe I can push my sanity a little further back from the brink...