Jesmonite Pot
When you edit down your home it can be difficult to not let ‘stuff’ creep back in… making it very difficult for people when they want to buy you gifts! My family and friends are brilliant at gifting me consumables, experiences and vouchers for independent shops so that I choose myself.
One of my excellent gift giving friends, Steph, also happens to be a workshop tutor - and for my 40th birthday she gave me a voucher for a one-to-one Jesmonite workshop!
Jesmonite is similar to resin - you mix a base and a liquid which you then pour into a mould. It cures in just 20 minutes and is really solid and versatile. It’s non-toxic and there was very little smell when mixing it.
Steph had numerous moulds for us to play with and I decided to make a terrazzo effect pot for a little plant baby that I’ve grown from a succulent leaf.
We started by making the ‘bits’ for the terrazzo - using pigment to mix the colours I wanted and then adding the colour to a small amount of Jesmonite mix and spreading it out to dry.
Once dry, I cracked it into ‘bits’ and added them in with some ‘bits’ Steph already had. When mixing colours you can just leave the waste in the pot to dry and then break it up to use the bits elsewhere - so there’s very little waste which is fantastic.
I then made up a larger amount of un-coloured Jesmonite, folded in my ‘bits’ and poured it into the plant pot mould, followed shortly after by a layer of solid colour Jesmonite that I mixed for the base.
After just twenty minutes (approximately… we forgot to set a timer), it was solid and I removed it from the mould.
I then had the satisfying job of sanding it down with fine wet sandpaper to reveal/enhance the terrazzo effect!
We had a great day being creative and I’m so pleased with the result! My little plant baby looks lovely in it and it’s a great addition to the kitchen windowsill succulent collection. If I made it again, I would leave the ‘bits’ bigger because they do disappear a bit and you need them bigger than you’d think.
It has quite a lot of little holes on the surface caused by bubbles. I could have tried harder to avoid them - but I personally rather like them.
Jesmonite is relatively inexpensive, but getting set up with the pigments and moulds etc could work out to be quite pricey. Steph is teaching a couple of Jesmonite jewellery workshops at The Bead Shop if you want to give it a try! They’re currently sold out - but you can add your name to the waiting list to find out when more dates are added.
