Craft| kraft |noun

1.  an activity involving skill in making things by hand.

          Verb [with object] exercise skill in making (something).

I like to consider myself a crafter, or better yet an artisan. Unfortunately, that means I think I can make anything or recreate anything.  And typically, I would say I can, with enough investment and/or money as well as time.  Rarely can we make a quality product on the first try.

Recently a dear friend visited from Hawaii.  As a house warming gift she gave me a beautiful board with resin waves (the Hawaii theme).  The artist is Marr Artworks on Oahu and can be found on Etsy, Marr Artworks.  My friend knows my crafting passion, and has been the recipient of many a ware from my studio, so she says “you can make one like it”.  And the wheels started to turn.

How hard can resin craft be.  Now I won’t be giving you a video tutorial, or step by step instructions on how to fail at making a resin board.  Like most crafts today, just go to YouTube and you can find a lot of instructions with detailed tutorials if you want to give it a try.  Now don’t get me wrong, if you are a creator, and love to try new crafts, please give this one a try.  Just don’t expect to have the same outcome as the board from Marr Artworks.

The real question is, when do you just buy the item and enjoy the artwork, and go down the rabbit hole.  If you have a craft room that looks like mine, it is full of past craft supplies, that makes you wonder when you had time to do them all.

As I have spent many a Sunday, at our local Farmer’s Market, I can say some of my jewelry and wire crafts (quartz necklace) were quite popular locally. That said, I would sometimes see a piece of jewelry or other item I became enthralled with only to spend hundreds of dollars on supplies and hours recreating, only to find I didn’t love the process.  I may have come close to making the item, but should have just bought the damn necklace and returned to what I love making.

Below is a list of items I purchased for my poor attempt at recreating the lovely art board.  Note, they are links to amazon, but that is where I got the items to give this a go.  I won’t give the prices but a total of what I spent vs. just buying the board for $45 from Marr Artworks, @marrarrworks. 

List of items purchased:

Dr Craft’s Resin

Resin Pigment 20 Colors

Resin Disposal Cups and Sticks

Set of two Bamboo Cutting Boards  

Rough edge cutting board from Home Goods ($7.99).  

I had plastic cups for leveling (see one of the many videos), painters tape (the blue kind) and a hot air gun from my embossing days.  Even with the items I had, my experiment cost me close to $100.

Notably, my white was pearl, and so didn’t get the white.  I put way to much epoxy on, wasting a lot of material. and used too many colors.

I think I will try again, but won’t be selling them any time soon.  I will stick to my coffee scoops and jewelry.  Hopefully I will see you at the Wheeler Farm Sunday Market in Utah, and show off some of my art!

Now we are back to the question: should you buy or make.  In this instance, epoxy is really not my thing, I would just buy!  Come back soon to see some of the tie dye.  That one I chose it as passion (all my family and friends can attest), and hope you would like a item or two.

Please go to Marr Artworks and order one of their pieces, they are beautiful!