For this past Hanukkah, my husband and I were trying to stay in budget. He had mentioned wanting some casual cuff links so rather than buying some, I decided to make him some for around $5 (the resin was actually about $10 but I only used a little of it so amortized it’s about $5).
Before making his cuff links, I tested it on a ring as it’s the same process. This is a great method if you only want to make a couple of small items.
Here’s what you’ll need:
- Items to make (ring, cuff links, pendant, earrings, etc.)
- Print out of something you’d like embed (photo, logo, etc.)
- Lisa Pavelka Magic-Glos UV Resin
- Sealant (I used modge podge, but you could also use packing tape — see below)
- optional: glitter or glitter paint
I got all of my materials at Michael’s.
First off, you’ll need some way of keeping your jewelry pieces level as the resin dries. I found that the cuff links sat nicely in the holes in ribbon spools. For the ring I was able to jam it into the hole, ripping the cardboard a bit and that kept it level.
Next was to print out what I wanted under the resin. I was going for kind of a goth look for the ring and retro, old west look on the cuff links. I have a couple of versions printed in case I made it too big or too small (I wasn’t sure if my printer was printing to scale). As it turns out, it was printing to scale so my measurements were right on. The cuff links were 15 mm squares and the ring was 24 mm by 18 mm.
Cut your image out. Make sure you can’t see any white around it (unless it’s a white image, of course).
Lay it on your ring where you want it to make sure it fits.
Lay down some sealant. When I did this one, I used modge podge. I put a layer down and then stuck my paper down.
Then I painted over the paper to seal it in.
And repeat for the cuff links . . .
I learned after the fact that using a sealant like modge podge can result in cloudiness in the resin since the resin can react with the modge podge. I did notice this a little bit, but I didn’t mind it since it went the “old” look I was going for. If that’s not the look you want, the folks over at Lisa Pavelka recommend packing tape or clear contact paper.
For the ring, I wanted a little something more, so I painted a layer of sparkle paint on there. Be sure to let each layer dry before doing the next one.
I don’t have an image of the resin on the ring, but I do have the one of the cuff links. The resin requires UV light to set. Unfortunately, I was leaving for work when it was dark and returning home when it was dark so if I wanted to catch some UV light, I had to do it at work. Plus this was supposed to be a surprise so I didn’t want my husband to see me doing this. So I brought them to work and did this during my lunch hour. I got a couple of weird looks as people walked by. 
But they did set nicely in about 15 minutes, although I made sure to keep them level just in case.
For the ring, I didn’t have as much UV light. I let it sit overnight and that seemed to work just fine as well. So, if you don’t have UV light, just let it sit for 24 hours as you would normal resin.
I liked the Lisa Pavelka Magic-Glos because it was somewhat viscous which made putting it inside the bevel and having it maintain a bubbled shape a bit easier.
And here’s the finished ring. You can see a little bit of the cloudiness in the middle. The finished cuff links are pictured at the start of the post.