Disclosure: I received this gummy bear mold free in exchange for an honest review. Post contains affiliate links.
When I first saw this gummy bear mold, my mind immediately went to the crafty possibilities. There are so many ways I could use little gummy bears in various projects!
I’m going to preface the rest of this post with a reminder that once you use the mild for something like this, it is no longer food safe. So if you want to make these resin gummy bears, and you also want to make gummy bears to eat, you should get two molds! Use a permanent marker to label which one is no longer for food use.
Resin is pretty easy to use, but you definitely have to follow the instructions closely and take your time. If you’ve never used resin before, this type of simple mix-and-pour project is a great place to start!
Start by mixing up a small amount of resin according to the package directions. If your resin does not come pre-measured, measure very carefully! Precise measurements are very, very, very, very, very important with resin. Also be sure to cover your work surface. If you make a mess with resin, it’s a VERY messy mess.
To make the finished product look more like real candy you will want to add some coloring to the resin. There are special dyes you can buy to change the color of plain ol’ resin, but acrylic paint also works and it’s lots cheaper! Add a few drops at a time until the color gets to the intensity that you want – more paint will make a darker, more opaque color. Just a few drops of paint goes a long way, so don’t get carried away!
You can order the gummy bear mold here. It’s super cute, with teeny tiny little bear-shaped cavities. These are definitely the size of actual gummy bears! The mold will make up to 50 at once, but I just mixed up a small batch of resin to see how these would turn out. I really like the mold – it was very easy to work with, and the finished bears popped right out without any trouble.
Pour the colored resin very, very carefully into the mold. Pour slowly so that you have precise control over the flow; the small cavities fill quickly and if you are pouring too fast, it’s very easy to over-fill them.
Many of my bears came out with little air bubbles in them. To avoid this, you can gently shake the bubbles to the surface. One easy way to do this without making a mess is to turn on a power drill or something else that similarly vibrates, and touch the body of the drill very gently to the edges of the mold. The vibration from the drill will transfer through the mold and help work any air bubbles out of the bears.
See the air bubbles? About half of them were really bubbly. So yeah… Vibrate those suckers for a minute to avoid this! Once the resin has been poured and vibrated, let it sit in a warm, dry, dust-free environment for at least 8 hours – I usually give it 12 hours just to be safe! Then you can pop the bears out of the mold. If there is any excess resin around the back edges of the bears, you can trim it off carefully with a craft knife.
Now comes the fun part – figuring out what to do with your bears!
There are lots of possibilities. Drill holes in them to turn them into beads, attach an eye screw or a glue-on bail to turn them into tiny charms, or glue them to other objects. I decided to use a couple of pendant bezels to show off a couple of my little bears!
I wanted to give the bezels a pop of color so first I painted the inside of each bezel with a few coats of nail polish and let it dry completely.
Then, use jewelry glue or other strong glue to attach the bears to the bezels. I just need to get some chains for mine and they will be ready to wear!
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