Magnetic Resin Tray

I just love the look of these small resin trays I’m seeing everywhere. With a nice flat surface, there are so many ways to customize it! I made a magnetic resin tray by embedding magnets in the pour.

Now this resin tray can hold paper clips on your desk, or pins at your sewing station.

Supplies for making a magnetic resin tray

• Promise Deep Pour Epoxy
• Tray mold
• Strong magnets (neodymium)
• Stir sticks and cups
• Anything to decorate the resin – dried flowers, alcohol ink, mica powder, glitters, etc – The new Alumilite Creation Kit has so many cute options in a handy storage case too!
• Safety glasses and gloves

This mold will need about 100 mL of resin to fill – a little more if you want a really thick bottom layer.

Mix and color resin

I chose Promise Deep Pour because it will create a beautiful, bubble-free dish in a single pour. Even with the edges that will be about 3/4 inch depth total.

Measure 2 parts A to 1 part B. Stir until the mixture is clear with no swirls or streaks. This will probably take 3 – 4 minutes. Since I’m using a deep pour epoxy, I’m not worried at all about pouring the mold all at once.

If you happen to be using a different resin that has a more shallow “per layer” depth, consider splitting this into two separate pours.

At this point, you could pour into smaller cups to add different colors, but I poured the whole clear mixture into my mold.

Then I added some tiny fruits, some glitter, and some alcohol ink. Tweezers are super helpful for getting some of those little pieces down into the resin.

I used alcohol ink so that I could get some interesting swirling colors, and the white helps the colors sink in a little.

Add magnets to resin

Carefully set the magnets into the mold. I put two on one side, and two on the other. Make sure to give them space or they will attract and snap together!

By placing the magnets on the edge, you’ll have magnetized sides, and a non-magnet center. This makes it really easy to hold something like safety pins on the sides, then move them to pick them up from the center.

Pass a heat gun over the surface or spritz with alcohol to remove bubbles. Repeat after another 5 minutes.

If you choose to give a swirl to the alcohol ink, wait about 45-60 minutes. The resin stays quite liquid for a long time (allowing any deeper bubbles to rise to the surface). Waiting a bit keeps the swirl from blending too much as the resin keeps curing.

This Promise deep-pour epoxy needs 5-7 days to cure completely, but it has no bubbles anywhere, so it’s totally worth it!

So, what do you think? Have you put magnets in any of your resin pours before? How did it go?

And be sure to let us know if you have any questions about the magnetic resin tray.