Well, I'm an engineer by training and a maker by compulsion. My workshop started as a 15m² room at the back of a family flat in central Bohemia. It was the leftover space nobody had a plan for. I claimed it.
That was 2010. The first real project I still remember was a chest for blankets. Then came kids' playhouses - single storey, then multi-storey. Then boxes, cutting boards, terraces, pergolas, garden houses, and at some point a pair of barn doors six metres tall.
In 2018 I found resin videos online. I was caught.
Resin Craft Guild came from that same journey - from years of making things go wrong, figuring out why, and writing it down properly so I'd stop making the same mistakes twice. The first pour never even hardened. Wrong ratio. That's where it started.
The newsletter doesn't generate revenue yet. That's fine. What I believe is that we can build a community here that supports each other - and that's worth more than a quick monetisation play.
Doing my best to have something for you every week - give or take. Around 600 words. Three minutes. No hype. No generic advice. No "just follow the instructions." If you're working with resin and getting results you're not happy with - or you haven't started yet and want to skip the expensive mistakes - this is where I write about what actually changes things.
My Crafting Journey
2010 - The 15m² room in central Bohemia Our family moved back to our home town in central Bohemia. We renovated the flat. At the back was a small room - around 15 square metres - that didn't have a clear purpose. I started using it as a workshop. A workbench, hand tools, learning what wood actually does when you cut and join it properly.
The first project I still remember: a chest for blankets. Built from scratch, jointed by hand. Nothing technically impressive. But it worked, it held together, and it was used. That was enough to keep going.
2010–2017 - Building the foundations Kids' playhouses came next - single storey first, then multi-storey. Then boxes, cutting boards, and the kind of small projects that fill a workshop shelf and quietly teach you everything: how wood moves, how joints fail, how finish behaves, how to fix something that went wrong at step two only when you're at step six.
The scale grew over time. Terraces and pergolas. Garden houses. Eventually a pair of barn doors - 6 metres tall - which taught me things about working at scale that small projects never do. Engineering background helps when the structure has to actually hold. The 15m² workshop started feeling tight.
2018 - Resin finds me Found epoxy resin videos online. Deep pours, river tables, transparent casts with objects suspended inside - the kind of work that looks like it shouldn't be possible to make by hand. I was caught immediately.
Bought a cheap casting resin. Mixed it - but not carefully enough. Came back the next morning to a soft, tacky, never-going-to-harden mess. The ratio was off. That's it. That simple. Started reading seriously about why mixing precision matters more than almost anything else in resin work. That reading eventually became the preparation guide.
2019 - First resin tables, shelves, and a hobby CNC First resin tables and shelves - learning by doing, which mostly meant learning by failing at things I didn't expect. The first river table came out, but it came with mistakes I hadn't anticipated. Learned the hard way why a spirit level is non-negotiable - and how to build casting forms that actually hold resin in, not let it all leak out overnight. Questions I didn't have answers to yet, and a list of things I'd do differently next time. Kept going.
Also picked up a hobby CNC that year. It opened up a different kind of precision - engraving, joinery, inlay work that would have taken hours by hand. The combination of resin casting and CNC work started making the pieces look like something worth giving away. Projects that had been purely for me became presents for friends. Then someone asked if they could buy one. That was the beginning.
2020–2021 - Inlays, LEDs, and experimenting with detail Started experimenting heavily with high-detail resin inlays - CNC-routed cavities filled with pigmented resin, fine patterns, layered pours. Then came LED ambient lighting integrated into the pieces themselves: light channels routed into wood, resin cast over them, the whole thing glowing from inside. A lot of these projects were one-offs, tests, things that didn't always work the first time. But this period pushed what I understood about resin behaviour at small scale - how it flows into fine detail, how it bonds, how pigment behaves differently at 2mm depth versus 20mm.
2022 - New house, new workshop begins We built a new house. All the storage and shelving systems inside needed to be made - which meant months of purposeful work and a reason to think seriously about production capacity. The new house also came with the opportunity I'd been waiting for: space for a proper workshop.
2025 - New workshop finished The original 15m² room had been home for 15 years. The new one came in at 25m² - better dust extraction, more bench space, room to run multiple pieces in parallel. That last part matters when resin cures on its own schedule. Still rather small, but more than enough for one person.
Resin Craft Guild (2023–present)
2023 - First newsletter attempt: DIY Misadventures I'd been playing with the idea of a newsletter for a while. The same questions kept coming - from customers, from Etsy messages, from maker forums - and writing felt like the right way to answer them properly. In 2023 I launched DIY Misadventures, with the intention of covering all my crafting work: woodworking, resin, CNC, the lot. The topic was too wide. It never found its focus.
2025 - Narrowing down, first guides published Realised the resin side was where the real questions were - and where I had the most hard-won experience to share. Started writing long-form guides on resincraftguild.com: the preparation guide, the processing and sanding guide, the bubble removal guide, and the epoxy brand comparison. All four from real workshop experience. Written to be useful, not impressive. Each one covering the stage where things actually go wrong - which is rarely the stage tutorials focus on.
Early 2026 - Resin Craft Guild newsletter launched Relaunched as Resin Craft Guild on Beehiiv - focused entirely on epoxy resin and woodworking. Three minutes, once a week. One technique insight, one workshop project, one honest product take, one quick tip. First person throughout. The narrower focus changed everything.
February 2026 - 1,000 subscribers Hit 1,000 subscribers. First subscriber survey - 678 responses from an engaged base. The #1 reader frustration: choosing the right resin. That became the next guide.
April 2026 - 1,600 subscribers · multiple published guides Survey confirmed 72% of the audience is under 6 months into resin - still forming habits, still choosing their first tools and brands. Growing at roughly 300 subscribers per month. Media kit live for sponsorship and affiliate partnerships.
The ambition is 8,000 subscribers with a 40% open rate by end of 2026. We'll see.
Thank you for being here. It means a lot.
Petr
Resin Craft Guild