Branching Out

I feel like all I've written about on here over the last month is resin dragon notebooks.... and honestly that is pretty much all I have been doing! I haven't had a whole lot of time for much else! But I have had a little time to start playing around with other ideas for things to create and add to my Etsy shop!

I really feel like if I'm to have my own business/shop, it needs to reflect who I am, things I enjoy, things I've done in the past, my art style, etc. So starting out with notebooks, planners, coloring books, etc. was a good route for that because those were things I used all the time as a teacher and in my personal life. All the keeping track of things, staying organized, and doing so in a creative way. I HAD to find fun ways to keep track of things as a teacher, not just for the kids, but for myself! If there wasn't a visual reminder, I would've forgotten about it as soon as 15 energetic kids walked into the room! (Now for a while I did get lucky and had that perfect group of kids that loved the routines I set up and would always remind me if there was something I'd forgotten). My brain is scattered, that's part of who I am. I love that part of myself because it can lead to fun and interesting situations but it was a challenge when I became a teacher. I spent years figuring out how to get it to work for me instead of against me. But that lead me to becoming very good at creative and colorful ways of staying organized and on top of things! So it just made sense to start creating planners and notebooks and stuff like that. And I've loved it! I'm excited to see what it brings for the future. HOWEVER... I am also someone that loves variety. But everything I've read about starting a business is to keep it super focused and do one thing and do it well. So how do I get to a place of balance..... That is what I'm having fun exploring now!

So far my favorite thing to make and sell has been the dragon eye notebooks! So branching out from there I've thought of various resin creations that could fit in with the fantasy theme and/or dungeons and dragons. I found some really cool molds for a dagger dice box and have been trying out making some of those!

Here are the molds I've been using! One side is for the bottom part that holds the dice, and the other side is for the lid piece. The molds are a little strange and have notches on the lid part but I can't figure out why. They don't connect with anything on the bottom part. At first I thought I was just getting air bubbles, but when they appeared in the same exact spots multiple times I looked closer at the mold and saw the notches. Other than that I've got not complaints!

I started out with a fairly simple for set to make with just some fading blue colors and it turned out so cool!

It was the perfect chance for me to really test out my "magic blue" mica powder! Its the lightest color in the point of these ones.

After this first set I wanted to make one that looked a little more fiery, and I wanted to try including some rose gold alcohol ink as well.

I liked how that one turned out as well, but it made want to try adding something onto the lid piece that would stick out and give it some dimension. I had a few cool looking amethyst stones that I thought would work well, so the colors I used for that one were colors that go along the amethysts!

And then there's my favorite.... The woodland one!

For that one I kept the green colors fairly light so that the leaves could be seen, but I fades to a bit of a darker transparent green after that and then faded to brown for the hilt part! I LOVE how it turned out!

So these custom dagger dice cases are one of the fun new things I've added to my Etsy shop!

I also wanted to find something that branches out to more of my teacher side of things.... And that led me to discover "badge buddies"..... I had never heard of them before but they are pretty cool! As a teacher I always wanted to include fun and colorful aspects to what I wore, so these were perfect!

So basically these can go behind an ID badge and be like a cute backdrop, or they could have titles or jobs added on with stickers and such for jobs where they need to have a badge showing what they do, but don't necessarily have to have a picture ID with it (RN, X-RAY, SUB, etc.)

Those are the first few I tried making, and then I wanted to try out a variety of different lettering/fonts/stickers to see how they'd look!

I also wanted to try making some with dried flowers in them as well.

Theres so many possibilities for these!

So the badge buddies are the other main thing I've started adding to my Etsy shop!

If anyone has any other fun ideas I could try making let me know!