DIY Resin Coasters with Flowers -

After my sister got married this past Summer, I was quick to preserve her wedding bouquet flowers. I knew I wanted to make something special with them, and casting her flowers in resin was something I’ve had in mind. I’ve experimented with resin in the past, and always loved the idea of preserving something memorable to use as something functional in a home.

Supplies:

I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.

Flowers. I recommend using flowers that have been pressed and ideally, preserved.
Unicone Art Resin. I would highly recommend using this brand of resin. I have used other brands, like ones you can find at your local craft store, but I’ve always struggled finding good results.
Silicone Molds
Scale
Plastic Cups
Skewers
Craft Sticks
Scissors
Butane Torch
Latex Gloves

Step 1: Organize Your Flowers

I always like to start by laying out all my flowers and seeing what I have to work with. I pressed some of the flowers and also preserved some of them using silica gel.

If you are interested in learning how I preserved my flowers in silica gel you can find that blog post here.

Some of the flowers will simply be too large for these molds depending on how you preserved them. Choose only ones that will not exceed the depth of the mold.

Once you have some flowers and greenery picked out that will fit the molds, start dry fitting them.

You’ll want to do this because once you pour the resin, you’ll want everything that you’re putting into the molds ready to go.

Use scissors to trim the stems where needed.

Once you’ve dry fitted your flowers and roughly have an idea of what flowers will go into each mold, give the mold a quick clean to get it ready for the resin.

I use a damp paper towel and this does the trick.

Step 2: Mix & Pour the First Layer of Resin

Next, you will need to mix and pour a small layer of resin into each mold.

The resin I use is called Unicone Art Resin and I HIGHLY recommend it. Like I mentioned above, I’ve tried several brands of resin from popular craft stores and I have yet to achieve consistent results. Sometimes it wouldn’t harden correctly and others time it would produce a crazy amount of bubbles, and so many other issues that are avoided if you use the right resin!

If you have never worked with resin before, you should know that it comes in 2 parts – the resin and the hardener. With the Unicone Art Resin, it is a simple 1:1 ratio mixture. Meaning, you will need to pour equal amounts of resin and hardener.

With gloves on, place a plastic cup on the scale and measure equal amounts of each part.

Stir for approximately 4-5 minutes.

Once stirred, pour a small amount just enough to cover the bottom of each mold. Do not fill up the molds any more than half way.

Step 3: Arrange Flowers in the Molds

Now for the best part!

Start arranging your flowers on top of the small amount of resin you just poured. I like to take my gloves off for this step.

I’ve found that a wooden skewer is the perfect tool to help push the flowers where I want them to be.

Take your time and have fun with it!

I ended up crunching some of the gold flower petals to sprinkle in my molds to fill up some negative space and I really liked what that did.

This is what mine looked like when I was done.

Step 4: Wait for the Resin to Harden

This is a super important step. WAIT for this small layer of resin to harden.

In the warm summer months, I was able to wait about 3 hours before my next round of resin pours. However, I made these in the cold winter months and it ended up needing way more time – about 12 hours.

I did start pouring the resin at the 3 hour mark and the flowers started floating up to the surface which is exactly what we are trying to avoid!

If you’re not sure if your resin has hardened enough, pour a little bit of resin in to see if the flowers start floating. If they don’t, you’re good to go!

Step 5: Mix & Pour the Rest of the Resin

Mix up as much resin as you need to completely fill up the molds using the same 1:1 ratio as you did before in Step 2. Make sure the flowers are completely covered with resin.

Step 6: Torch Away the Bubbles

When you pour the resin, you will probably see lots of bubbles – this is completely normal.

Using a butane torch about 6 inches away from the mold, start removing the bubbles. Be careful not to get too close or to over-torch as it can cause the resin not to harden correctly.

For the next 1-2 hours, periodically check on the molds to see if any new bubbles came to the surface.

Let the resin harden for 24 hours.