Ask an Artist with Minderella
We are so blessed to be part of such an amazing community of artists. Today we are excited to start a new series of blog posts featuring some of those fabulous resin artists! Learning from each other and sharing our experiences is one of the best parts of this community.
We want to bring you the stories and experiences of your fellow artists so that we can continue to build relationships and help each other grow.
We are excited to introduce you to our first featured resin artist, Minderella (AKA Mindy DaPrato) of Minderella Creations! If you are part of our Facebook and Instagram family you may already know Mindy and her work. Mindy is an amazing tumbler artist and she loves to share her experience and techniques with her fellow artists.
You can learn a lot by following Mindy’s YouTube channel and checking out her many helpful tumbler tutorials. Mindy successfully balances her tumbler making with her full time gigs as a mother, wife, and software engineer. Maybe one of our questions for her should have been, “When do you sleep?”. Keep reading to learn more about Mindy and some of her best tips for resin artists!
Ask an Artist with Minderella
We asked Mindy to tell us a little bit about her family…
“I met my husband in college through a friend on my softball team. We dated 3 years to the day we got married and have been married for 17 years. We have two kids, a boy — Gage (9) and a girl — Hayden (4). Both our kids are miracles and blessings from God. We had to go through IVF to have my son and I had a very rough pregnancy and was on bedrest. My daughter was a complete surprise! We were told we couldn’t have kids and she proved to break the mold.”
And about her work life…
“I am a software engineer and have a Bachelors degree in Computer Science with a minor in Business and Information Systems. I just celebrated 15 years with my employer. I work on health software and have done a wide range of things from creating claims for clients to bill payers to creating reports and forms.”
Where she would go if she could go anywhere in the world, and why…
“I would love to go to Italy. My husband is Italian and it’s been a dream of ours to go there at some point.”
Where she sees herself in 10 years…
“Well, this makes me sad because my son will be in college in 10 years and that’s the first thing I think of! I see myself continuing to work and being involved in whatever activities my kids choose to do. I also love crafting and teaching and so I plan to continue to incorporate that into my life.”
One of her strengths and one weakness…
“A strength of mine is being positive. I always try to bring a positive attitude to everything I do and it’s helped me get where I am today. There is always going to be negative if you look for it…and I’m not ALWAYS positive…but I do try to be. I’ve been through a lot that could make me negative…but God has given me a hope that keeps me looking up.
This is also how I got my name…Minderella Creations…because my husband told me I was like a Disney character when we were dating. I was called Snow White and Minderella and I went with Minderella. :)”
“A weakness of mine is over-communicating. I am a very good communicator…but I tend to provide TOO many details and I know sometimes I just need to get to the point.”
How she got started with resin…
“Right after I had my daughter in 2015 I saw glitter tumblers on etsy. Aaryn (Gries) Williams sold them and I tried to get one and couldn’t a couple times, so I decided I was going to figure out how to make them. At the time there weren’t really any videos or Facebook groups that had information so I took a leap and went and purchased things to start.
I didn’t know about resin at the time and after I had done my first cup, and after a lot of research, I found that resin was being used to cover the glitter. So I bought some to try and tried a few times, making them for myself and friends and family.
After making them and sharing in a few crafting groups, I started creating videos and posting them to YouTube to help others have tutorials and information to help them in making them too. I never dreamed after posting that video that I would have a video with over 2 million views and almost 100k subscribers on my channel…but here we are!
My glitter friend Heather Autry reached out to myself, Jana Mays and Bridgette Camacho and we teamed up to create a Facebook group (Tumbler Tutorials and More!) where we could help focus on techniques and questions on how to create tumblers. It’s grown to almost 80k members now and it’s been a great group!”
How she balances tumbler making, family and work…
“This is a hard thing to balance! My family and job come first and then I do the cup making when I can. I work off of a waitlist and some have been waiting a very long time (and I am SO SORRY to them). I worked with my husband to set aside time for us and set aside certain nights to work on cups.
Things do come up with the kids or holidays/birthday/events that mean I am not able to work on cups as often as I would like. I just take a deep breath and keep open communication with my customers if that happens and try to always keep them informed. I never take a payment until I’m able to actively work on the cup.”
And how long she’s been making tumblers…
“I made my first cup in December of 2105…so I have almost hit 5 years now!”
Her favorite project…
“Gosh…there have been so many fun ones over the years. I think my favorite was when someone requested a northern lights tumbler and I didn’t want to do it like everyone else. I wanted it to be all glitter…most were doing alcohol inks. I did a lot of looking at pictures and then went for it and it turned out great!
I have never thought of myself as an artist and I think that was the first time I actually thought I might be a little artistic.”
And her least favorite project…
“Anything with chunky glitter! Haha! No…I’m kidding…but chunky glitter has definitely not been my favorite thing to learn to work with. I really haven’t had a least favorite one…I’ve enjoyed each one I’ve gotten to make.”
Her favorite CCDIY product…
“Hands down my favorite CCDIY product is Artist Resin!! I was around before it had the name change. Lol! I had tried 7-8 different brands prior to using CCDIY and I was SO hesitant to try it because of my experiences with others. I talked to Barry and Teresa through Instagram and asked a bajillion questions (Remember the over-communicating thing?).
After a couple weeks I decided to try it and I never looked back. Not only do I love the epoxy…but I LOVE CCDIY as a company…the care they have for their customers and the customer service that has been displayed to me and others is phenomenal. Top notch!”
A tip she would give beginning resin artists…
“I would say practice! Give yourself time to get familiar with resin and how it works and the issues you can experience with it. Don’t expect to be perfect at it right off the get go…many aren’t. I would also say to be sure to use PPE from the get go.”
Her must have tool for resin art…
“Just one?? I need many…torch, baby wipes, gloves, silicone tip stick to help move epoxy, and a turner (I hand turned for 2 years when I started and my life was never the same after I built my first turner!).”
Anything else we should know about her or her craft…
“Something that some probably don’t know is that I love gaming…I’ve played Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. I’m kind of all over the place!”
The Wrap up…
As you can see Mindy is a busy lady with a passion for family and tumblers (and sometimes video games!). We hope that sharing her story will help and inspire you with your passions. You can find Mindy all over social media too! Check out her Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube pages for lots of fun and information.
If you want more inspiration and information we have a Facebook group for that. Join us in Counter Culture DIY Artist Support where we, and other artists, offer ideas, answer questions, and support each other!
Do you have an art project using any of our products that you want to share? Send it to us at [email protected], and we can feature them here!