Fur and Ash Heart Necklace Tutorial – making bereavement and cremation jewellery using a direct pour technique. This technique is ideal for a heart in heart setting (here) which are all solid silver.
Fur and Ash Heart Necklace Tutorial Video
You’ll need the following supplies
one of our DIY ashes ring kits
the ashes/hair version of the kits contain:
- a heart in heart setting – this is the 4mm in 8mm small size
- a practice setting for direct pour (checking colour etc)
- vinyl gloves
- resin sparkle mix (you can use eyeshadow for custom colours!)
- a dust mask
- label backing paper
- some sandpaper
- 3 cocktail sticks
- 10g UV resin
You’ll also need your client’s cremation ashes for this Easy Double Ashes Ring Tutorial. We ask them to only send half a teaspoonful! That way, if it’s lost in the post they can send a little more. We sell wholesale sending kit supplies such as ashes sending pots here. You might also need:
Fur and Ash Heart Necklace Tutorial
Hi, I’m Nikki Lovegrove and today I’m showing you how to make a fur and ash heart necklace using one of my new little heart in heart settings. The hearts can be purchased as a kit with everything you need to add your loved ones’ ashes or hair (or even your breastmilk), and I also offer them wholesale. I’ve linked to all the supplies I’m using in the video description, which are for sale on my website here (see all the links above!)
This tutorial is dedicated to Luna, a dog who was named after the moon and has sadly passed away. We sent her owner a kit in the post with a pot for Luna’s fur and her ashes. Lay out all of your supplies and have your UV lamp or pen light to hand. Today I’m using alcohol ink to try to get a chocolate colour because Luna was a chocolate Labrador. I’m trying out the coffee coloured alcohol ink first, but as you can see when I mix it with resin, the colour is too cool for chocolate so I then tried the brown colour, which was perfect. Mix a single drop of the alcohol ink in with the UV resin on some label backing paper with a cocktail stick.
Put the heart on something you can hold, I use an upside down ramekin with a little bit of white tack. Mix it well and place a very thin layer into the bit of the heart where you want the colour. Put it around the base and up the sides. Make sure it’s not too thick because you need thin layers to keep enough room for the fur. Pop it into your UV lamp for 60 seconds to cure.
Once it’s cured, remove it from the lamp and add a tiny bit of clear resin into the smaller heart. You could do this the other way round but it might be tricky to get hair into something that tiny. Luna’s ashes are quite fine so I’m not grinding them any further. I use a cocktail stick to transfer some into a thin layer. One of the pieces is a little big so I remove it and add a little more of the ashes. Then add another thin layer of the tinted resin to the larger heart area and cure for 60 seconds.
Tidy up your workstation with biodegradable cleaning wipes. Now prepare the fur by selecting a pinch a little longer than needed. Place the pinch of hair onto label backing paper and add a drop of resin. The resin stops hair blowing away and I’m making sure it’s all soaked. Then I use a pair of sharp hairdressing scissors to cut the length you think I think I’ll need. I’m cutting at an angle so some strands are longer. I know the fur is going to curve round a bit and there’s some guess work involved!
Spend plenty of time adjusting the position of the fur and pressing down any strands which are poking out, or remove them completely. Worst case scenario, you can sand them off after this layer is cured but it’s much faster to try to get this right first time round. Before you cure, add another layer of clear resin and ashes to the small heart. You could definitely add a resin sparkle mix but this client wanted classic ashes without colour in the ring so I thought I would do the same on this charm, which I’m doing pro bono. Cure this layer and check it afterwards to make sure it’s slightly dipped at the top, or concave.
I’m so grateful to Luna’s family for permission to film this video as part of my series of courses to make breastmilk and memorial jewellery. The final layer will be clear resin which I messed up a little bit here. You can see air bubbles coming out, which I could’ve avoided by putting the first drop from the spout onto label backing paper then using the second drop to fill the charm. So I’m using patience and a cocktail stick to remove the bubbles. There are other ways to remove them but this is my favourite.
If you’re enjoying this video please give me a like. Let me know in the comments if you’ve ever had issues with bubbles in resin and what have you used to try to remove them?
Add a tiny bit more clear resin if needed then give the charm five minutes to settle and allow any micro bubbles to pop before you cure it. I cured it on a low heat setting for 99 seconds then let it cool completely. Then I repeat twice more to ensure the top isn’t sticky. This is the finished charm, what do you think?
Thanks for watching. Now relax and do some crafting
Alexandra said about Luna:
Luna was only 7 when she passed and it was unfortunately very sudden, she was fit and healthy but was poisoned by some toxic water following a swim in her favourite place. It was quick and sudden.
We know she is at peace with her sister Stella, who we also tragically lost just 7 months prior aged only 5 to cancer.
Stella was named for the stars, Luna for the moon.
Her favourite things were swimming, sunbathing, and cuddling on the couch. She would run to our cars and jump in the boot looking for an item of shopping to help bring back to the house…the neighbours found it hilarious that she would wander round happily carrying random things like a head of broccoli or a bag of frozen peas.
She was a big, kind, soft lazy lump but as soon as she heard the doorbell go, she would be up and looking for her favourite toy to greet whoever was at the door. Thanks for the extra effort you have made x
TikTok
@keepsakersuppliesFur and Ash Heart Necklace – instructional video for making a memorial heart necklace or charm with UV resin. Please wear full PPE and don’t do this around children or pets. Here’s where to see the full blog with the video transcript and all the equipment I used: https://bit.ly/FurAshHeart linktr.ee/keeptree♬ original sound – Keepsaker Supplies
@keepsakersuppliesFur and Ash Heart Necklace – instructional video for making a memorial heart necklace or charm with UV resin. Please wear full PPE and don’t do this around children or pets. Here’s where to see the full blog with the video transcript and all the equipment I used: https://bit.ly/FurAshHeart linktr.ee/keeptree♬ original sound – Keepsaker Supplies