To start I mixed up 14 ounces of Total Boat 2:1 epoxy with medium hardener. I then split about half of the resin into four smaller cups and added alcohol ink. This made it so we had 4 cups of resin each with a different color, and 1 cup with about 7 ounces of clear in it.

After that I set up a silicon mat with the flat side up and sprayed some mold release onto it. After spraying the mold release, I poured the colored resin from the four cups directly onto the silicon mat in kind of a crazy swirly pattern, ending the pour with the clear resin that I had set aside in the first step. The purpose of the clear resin is to make the colors pop and to fill in any areas that were not covered by colored resin.

In the next step I added some drops of alcohol ink onto the mixture on the silicon mat and used a paint stick to swirl the mixture until I had a pattern that I liked. The concept here was to eliminate clear spots in the resin so that there wouldn’t be any spots that you could see through the shade to an exposed light bulb. I then left the mixture on the silicone mat for about two hours so it would start to set up and take shape. However, the mixture timing for this step varies largely depending on the space that you are doing the project in. It’s important not to let the project solidify completely; you want to get it when it is still in the gel phase of the hardening process. At this stage, the resin can be easily bent into a shape without the risk of breaking.

To shape the mixture, I used the silicone mat. The mat should be formed into the shape that you want the pendant to take. After getting the mat into a shape that I liked I left it overnight to allow it to solidify fully. By the next morning the resin was fully cured. Some of the edges were a bit thin and I thought they might break off with time so I used a tin snip to trim away the excess. After trimming I sanded the edge all the way around to get rid of any sharp spots.

Now it was time to add the lighting components. I used a light kit from the local hardware store that came with everything that I needed to complete this step. I Started this step by locating the center of the top.  After I located this point, I marked the point and drilled a hole to allow the wire to pass through and connect with the socket at the other end. After installing the electrical components I attached a suspension chain to the light for it to hang from and screwed in the light bulb. And voila, lamp was done.

All in all it was a pretty simple process, a lot of fun, and an easy DIY.