Baby Hair Heart Tutorial – making a ring and dangle charm with UV resin and an extremely precious tiny lock of baby hair. Keepsake jewellery using a direct pour technique. In the video I’m showing you how to work with hair, and you’ll find more info in our Advanced Memorial Jewellery Course. Recently I’ve created two free courses to help people learn how to make breastmilk and memorial jewellery – click here to register and take them!
I’m using one of our solid silver rings which are great for rubbing over a stone or direct pouring; this is our Twisted Heart Ring which is also available in gold vermeil (coming soon!). The ashes/hair/fur kit option for the heart bezel ring comes with a practice setting.
You can read about different types of silver here in Types of Silver and our twisted bands are made from 940 purity Argentium silver, so a little purer and more tarnish-resistant than sterling silver.
Easy Baby Hair Heart Tutorial Video
After your first order you’ll receive a reasonable 15% off future purchases*. Firstly, when making memorial jewellery send your client a sending kit, see this blog How To Make Sending Kits for advice on instructing clients on sending in fur, here are the sending kit instructions templates and here are the clear sending pots we sell. This client returned their kit by Special Delivery and we ask them to give us the tracking number so I can look out for it.
You’ll need the following supplies
All of our rings are available as ashes and fur kits which contain everything but the UV lamp and scissors, but I’m listing the supplies I used below individually for professionals wanting to get the best possible results:
- Twisted Heart Ring with ashes/fur kit
- heart bezel necklace setting
- Padico Star Drop UV resin (optional)
- SUN3 48w LED UV lamp
- hair tweezers
- hairdressing scissors
- reverse action tweezers
- ring sizing stick (optional)
- necklace chain – dangle charm bail setting – carabiner clasp (optional)
- heart footprint pendant (optional)
Easy Baby Hair Heart Tutorial Tutorial
Hi, I’m Nikki Kamminga from Keepsaker Supplies and Tree of Opals and as part of my series on working with hair and fur, we’ll be making this simple resin heart ring and dangle charm. I’m going to add a trigger warning because in this video I’m going to talk about babies passing away.
These baby memorial pieces are for my client Charisse, and this video is dedicated to her beautiful baby Georgeia, who died at the age of two weeks old. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to Charisse for allowing me to film this and to pay tribute to her beautiful little girl with this jewellery. My regular viewers know that each piece means the world to me but baby memorials are something very special for me to work with personally, as a bereaved parent myself.
If you’re new here and you’d like me to make you something as a memorial for your own baby then please reach out privately on info@treeofopals.com If it’s time sensitive and you’d like my help asking your care providers to help you collect a keepsake please message us on the Tree of Opals Facebook page and we will give you my WhatsApp number.
How To Make A Hair Heart Pendant or Dangle Charm
Charisse sent me this photo of Georgeia’s hair, and I asked her to send half of it by Special Delivery in a kit we sent. Start by preparing the bezel cup with a very very thin layer of resin with your colour mixed in. The thinner the better! Cure this for a minute or so under a UV nail lamp, until it’s hard when you poke it with a cocktail stick.
Repeat with another thin layer and then the third layer should be clear resin with just a little of the colour mixture swirled in, to make a pretty pattern behind the hair. You could add cremation ashes in this layer if you’re using them. This tutorial shows you the easiest way to make a heart piece using a direct pour method so it’s perfect for DIY and beginners. If you’d like a tutorial on shaping hair into hearts, trees and other shapes please leave me a comment!
Put a thin line of resin on a piece of label backing paper then add some of the hair. Don’t use it all up, no matter how much the client’s sent you… That’s very important in case you make a mistake! I’m making this heart pendant for free for Charisse as a thank you gift and to check she likes the placement of the hair and the colour. There aren’t many air bubbles in the hair. If it was fur, I’d spend more time soaking it with resin to remove them. Now cut the hair into the length you want. As there were only a few strands in this piece of hair, by quadrupling them up like this I’m making it into a thicker piece without having to cut the whole lock.
Using tweezers, carefully transfer the hair on top of the last cured layer then spend some time moving it about till you’re happy, then cure again. Now we’re going to add a layer of clear. I add too much here so use the cocktail stick to remove some resin. Give it a few seconds to level then cure. You’ll notice it comes up to the top on the sides and dips down in the middle. I then do another layer for the top coat. You can use UV top coat if you like but this is Padico Star Drop UV resin so it’s not sticky and doesn’t need a top coat.
You could do this doming in a single layer but UV resin can get hot if it’s too thick and shrink a little, so I always work in thin layers. Allow it to cool completely then cure it again and repeat this a few times, cooling down in between. Now I’m sending Charisse a photo of the pendant and an explanation that it’s free. If you make direct pour pieces for a client, there’s always a chance they might not like the colour or the placement so it’s always a good idea to make a sample up with their hair or ashes et cetera. Click on this blog for iPhone settings to edit the photo!
My client absolutely loved this heart charm so I went ahead and repeated the process as closely as possible with the ring. Double and triple check the ring’s the correct size before you begin. There are loads of ways to hold a ring steady but if you have a pair of reverse action tweezers like these, that’s my favourite.
I’ve put the exact settings I used above but I make these rings by hand from scratch and the band is tarnish-resistant. It goes much faster the second time when your confidence increases and you’re used to working with this client’s hair. You should always return the sample piece you made for no extra charge. I sell stainless steel practice bezel cups on KeepsakerSupplies.com but if you like you can do it in solid silver. The benefit of this is your client might want you to add additional hardware like a necklace chain or a dangle charm setting and you can ask them for £20 or so for the service and think of it as a tip.
Charisse has sent me some photos of Georgeia. These photos at the end may upset some viewers so please switch to another video now if you’d prefer
Please note, this Rabbit Fur Stone and Packaging Tutorial contains affiliate links, meaning I receive a small income based on your purchases from Amazon and Etsy etc. This affiliate income is really helpful to me to support my family and if you’d like to know how I set it all up please get in touch (blogs coming soon!).
Nikki
