I am continuing some fairly radical experiments with Angelina Fantasy Film and UV Resin.

I find working with iridescent and holographic materials so nourishing and stress relieving!

I have been making all kinds of earrings and necklaces and delirious glittering sparkling shapes!

These pieces are made of translucent, layered, heat-sculpted Angelina Fantasy Film.

I make armatures of floral wire and colored craft wire.

The Fantasy Film gets glued down to the fin-like armature with white glue – this is very tricky and doesn’t work consistently.

I think people who make fairy wings professionally- like for dolls- have more sophisticated techniques, like this hilarious Italian guy who uses an iron and Fimo liquid fusing gel.

Or you could use jigs to keep the wire armature flat. Then it would be much easier to glue down the film.

As soon as the glue is dry I use a lighter to burn, melt and shrink the Fantasy Film into curving, twisting shapes.

Once I have organic shapes I like, I start decorating the shapes with Swarovski crystals, jelly crystals, gradient pearls, and microbeads.

I use UV resin to attach the decor, sometimes flat to the surface of the warped film, sometimes skeins of microbeads floating above it in a transparent wave of resin. I use a wax pencil to pick up the tiny crystals and beads, one at a time.

It takes a long time! But I don’t mind. It’s mesmerizing and soothing to dot tiny rainbow bubbles onto a fin or wing of opalescent, changeant film. After I’ve added a good amount of decor, I start thickening and strengthening the Fantasy Film with drips and layers of tinted UV resin.

The tinted UV resin adds hints of color, more transparent shapes, and strength in areas where the film is brittle or fragile.

Spirals of metallic purple wire make jellyfish tendrils and UV resin coats the strands with tiny beads. The detail is infinite! I cure the resin in sunlight, sitting on our balcony with all my little bottles of UV resin.

Watching the materials sparkle in the sun is a great comfort to me.

And fiddly, absorbing work is good for my brain.

As my friend Gieza Poke says, when the hands are busy, the mind is calm!