This will be a long story, but because I really like the result of what I am going to describe to you now, let's get started.

It all started by accident in 2012 when I visited Brazil. I was on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro and wanted to bring something with me as a souvenir. There weren't many souvenirs around, so I grabbed sand from the beach. A few weeks later, I grabbed another bit of sand on the Brazilian island of Ilha Bela. Just an innocent idea, right? I travel a lot, really a lot. Before Covid, I spent more than 90% of my time abroad. So, it's no surprise that my travel collection has grown a little. By 2018, I had about a hundred samples from all around the world (helped by the fact that whenever I found out that my friends or colleagues were travelling somewhere, I asked them to grab sand from the destination when it was legal to do so).

I displayed the sand collection on the middle shelf in my library. Each type of sand was in its own IKEA tealight holder. It looked cute, but it was no longer one shelf; the collection grew to two and then three. I realised that I had nowhere to expand, at least not horizontally. So, it occurred to me: Why not vertically? I had one free wall in the living room.

I googled for a while, looking for ideas, but nothing on the Internet inspired me. I tried to imagine what I would like, and then an idea emerged. The idea was about getting some hexagonal silicone moulds by using resin to create the shape, somehow getting a magnet and sand in them, and then putting them on the wall where there would be a metal plate, so I could move the sand around as needed.

The resin was an idea that occurred to me immediately. It wasn't about the expense but about the ability to "inflate" the wall indefinitely and never be dependent on any supplier. The idea of a vertical move didn't come up out of anywhere. IKEA stopped making those candleholders (which it had been producing for about 20 years), which p#ssed me off quite a lot. A lot.

The problem was that I didn't know much about resin, silicone moulds, magnets, or anything I needed to use.

First, I looked for hexagon moulds in Czech e-commerce stores. Unsuccessfully. Then German ones. Also unsuccessful. Finally, I checked Chinese AliExpress and found an ordinary hexagon mould. Of course, I wanted a set of moulds with a body and a lid, and I ordered a few. They were cheap and cost me only a few dollars, but I had to wait months for them to be delivered. When they arrived, they turned out to be very narrow and had only a little area where I could show off my sand. I began rethinking the idea of hexagons and started looking for simple square shapes with one thin side. I found a few, ordered again, and waited again.

And again, I wasn't happy; it was too narrow and high. Something was always wrong. Finally, I found a mould that I liked, but it didn't have a lid. I ordered it and waited again.

The form arrived, and it seemed ok. Square shape, large area, with something like a border for future labels. But as I mentioned before, it didn't have a lid. I tried to order some flat moulds to use a different mould for the lid. I placed the order and waited; it arrived and didn't fit. It took a lot of time.

It was 2019, and I was constantly on the road abroad. However, I remember being in the middle of the Wadi Rum desert in Jordan, googling all the types of resin. I might never have finished the project if Covid hadn't arrived. Suddenly, after many years, I was at home for more than a few days, and the sand collection was literally staring at me. I needed to keep busy. I decided to finish the project, no matter how much money and time it required.

I ordered dozens of the same type of mould from China. Pouring one at a time would take years because it takes about three days to harden one box in the mould. The order took longer than usual because, in China, everything was closed or very slow due to Covid. In the meantime, I started testing the resin. I discovered a Czech e-commerce resin store Epoxio, bought a few kilos and started testing the resin.

Epoxy resin is a compound of two components that must be mixed in the right proportions. It took me weeks to master the magic of the resin, stop the bubbles from forming, learn to stir the resin properly, etc. Another problem was that I had to wait about three days for the result. People were stressed out about their Covid test results at the time; I couldn't care less. I was stressed out about how the prototype would come out.

No, we are not finished yet. It's a long story, so we will continue in the next post in a few days :)