Craft Break 1!!

I love to run! It is my workout of choice. It is my calm after long days. I get excited buying new running gear and I will pay just about any price to enter a race especially if it is for charity. I am fortunate enough to have met and married a wonderful man who enjoys an even more endurance intensive sport than I do - triathlon! These sports require hours and hours of training before the day of the main event, which lasts a mere fraction of that training, all so you can cross the finish line and earn The Medal! After so many races, I found myself wondering "What does one do with these prized trophies??" We both bought medal racks but they filled to capacity a bit sooner than expected.

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I Googled donation options and came up with a fantastic charity, Medals4Mettle, which gives race medals to courageous people fighting life threatening illnesses. I expect that I'll be sending them many more over the years. They accept medals from varying distances but not all of the medals we had met the criteria so I did what any good crafter does to search for their next big project - I consulted Pinterest! My search was vague but it came up with several great options. I quickly zeroed in on making coasters with resin because I remembered seeing some at a restaurant years ago and thinking they were pretty cool. A little bit more research and I was off to the craft store to pick up all of the supplies.

Once back at the house, I prepared my space with plastic and waxed paper to prevent never seeing my apartment deposit again due to ruining the kitchen island. I found a YouTube instructional video to get my confidence high and began mixing and pouring.

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I wanted to make the medals look like they were suspended in the resin so I had to pour one layer of the resin, wait for it to gel, place the medal on top, then pour the remaining resin. This part turned out to be a test of my patience and a couple of the shallower medals reflect when I failed that test. I also learned that the suggestion on the side of the can of resin stressing the importance of a well ventilated area should have been an instruction. Our house smelled like nail polish remover/paint thinner for a few days so next time I'll be doing this outside.

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Eventually I got the timing down and was able to get eight story-starting coasters out of the effort. They are by no means perfect and I continue to learn "Dos and Don'ts" when using them but they are certainly unique and it beats throwing the medals away that my man and I worked hard to earn.

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Do:

-Let them dry all the way before attempting to remove them the from mold. Wear rubber gloves while doing this just incase you did not wait long enough.

-Embrace the imperfections. You are not a machine! Not everything in life has to be perfect, sometimes it's the effort that makes it perfect. Or as a friend of mine says about our handcrafted gifts: "We don't do perfect, we do variations."

-Give to friends as gifts!

-Use as a paperweights when not being utilized as a coaster.

Do Not:

-Leave in a hot car all day or on a table in direct sunlight for a long period of time. They become a bit sticky and adhere to things. They can still be removed but with a bit more effort that normal. **Solution: Back with felt which also doubles as a scratch barrier.

-Leave a glass with a lot of condensation on it on them for more than an hour without moving the glass. This somehow causes them to stick to the bottom of the glass a bit. The glass then must be removed carefully from the base so as not to break it.

-Drop on bare foot...….

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Have an excellent weekend and happy crafting everyone!! I'll be back on the 17th with my thoughts on the first half of Why Won't You Apologize?