Making Gemstones With a "Pop It" Toy

In this Instructable, I will answer a question that nobody asked: Can you use a "Pop it" fidget toy as a gemstone mold?

The little domes that you press with your fingers seem to be the perfect shape and the silicone material should be ideal as well.

This tutorial might seem a bit random, but you can use the mentioned techniques with any silicone mold!

1. Pop it fidget toy
2. hot glue or (UV) resin
3. acrylic paint or nail polish (especially shimmery colors)

Optional:

1. baking paper
2. glitter
3. clear nail polish

First, I tested filling the concave areas with hot glue. The front and backside of the toy look slightly different.

I suspected side 1 to work better as a mold and turned out to be right (at least I preferred the results from side 1). 

A small problem is that the hot glue creates a dome, so the gems won’t lie flat.

So I decided to press the glue down with little discs of baking paper and a fitting flat object.

Next, I wanted to see what happens if I paint the molds before adding the glue.

I found out that you can create interesting patterns by making the paint watery. I let that pattern dry and coated it with more paint.

I used my trusty nail polish as well, because it dried quicker than the acrylic paint and was also more opaque.

Then I just had to fill the molds with glue. As tested before, I covered the glue with the baking paper discs and pressed it flat.

Popping out the gems worked really well. No paint was left behind in the molds and the gems came out looking very smooth.

This is a good trick for silicone molds in general - no matter how many layers of paint you use, the result will come out smooth and the shape won't be affected!

I just needed to trim the excess glue. 

To make glitter gems, the best way I found was to coat the mold with clear nail polish and to sprinkle the glitter on top. (Glue works too, but the finish wasn't as smooth)

You can add a layer of matching paint on top as well.

There was one more thing I wanted to try - UV resin.

I tried to be a good example by wearing gloves, having good air ventilation and even wearing a mask - thanks to my husband who likes to remind me of the importance of safety measures ;)

Of course I glued the lid of the nozzle shut with resin, so I had to pour the resin straight out of the bottle opening.

I got the best results when I didn’t fill the mold completely at first. I filled the area about halfway, swirled the resin around to coat everything and cured it.

Then I topped it up with more resin and cured it again. 

My UV light is meant for nails - I got it second hand for 5 pounds. I’m still happy about that - it works well for small projects.

As expected, resin is hard to beat when it comes to looks - the gems turned out nice.

Because this Pop it has a matte finish, the gems came out matte as well.

By the way: Of course, after using things like resin on the toy, I wouldn't let kids play with it - especially little ones.

I wanted to see if I can make the gems clearer with clear nail polish. And it worked even better than I thought!

An easy way to add color to the resin gems is to paint the bottoms. Shimmery colors will give the gems a nice shifting effect.

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Well, maybe you found something useful in this Instructable. Or maybe not. Either way, thanks for checking it out!