Dead Wasps

Frankenstein is painting his mother's house, and encountering lots of wasps in the process. He sprays them with wasp killer and waits until they're all dead before he resumes painting. Then he asked me, "Do you want the dead wasps?"

Hell yes I want the dead wasps.

Frankenstein presented me with this jar. The lid says "apricot jam."

I pulled out my resin and my molds. Took the lid off the jar of wasps, poured two wasps out onto my table, and then froze in terror. I was completely paralyzed. I stared at those two wasps for a good three or four minutes. Then I carefully put them back into the jar using a hemostat, put the lid back on, and texted Frankenstein. "Are we sure these wasps are dead? REALLY DEAD?" "Of course they're dead," he responded. "Be brave, little one!"

After about ten more minutes of staring at the closed lid, I realized that the only way I was going to do the damn thing was if I actually mixed the resin. So I sucked it up, mixed the resin, opened the apricot jam, and poured out two wasps. I was committed now.

Every time I dropped something or bumped the table, the wasps jumped, and I screamed. This continued throughout the project. But somehow I finally managed to get glitter and resin and wasps into the molds.

Behold:

This is a pic of the wasps on the doming tray. The glitter predictably sank to the bottom of the resin, which made the side stuck in the mold effectively the back side. And the wasps' various lumpy parts were sticking out of the tops, so I domed them. Afterward I had to sand off a couple of drips and round some of the edges, but they turned out pretty well.

Once they were safely contained within the resin, I felt more comfortable touching them! Not 100%, but better.

I pulled out my tiny hand drill and prepared to turn them into jewelry. My wire wrapping skills are not the best. So I'm trying to improve. Here's an early one:

This one came out okay:

Mostly I stuck to the swirls that I'm comfortable with. But there are lots more wasps waiting to be wrapped, so I hope to get better at it. As you can see in the doming pic, there are lots more to practice on.

And Frankenstein has already filled another jar full of wasps for me. They sure do love his mother's house! Perhaps I should gift her one of these...