Resin casting for the first time

I kept seeing resin casting on Craftsters.org and I finally decided to bravely try it. I wanted to find a way to make lots of gifts for me DD friends that didn't cost an arm and a leg but were as nice as stuff you could buy in the store.
I didn't quite mix up enough resin to fill all the the mold. We added glitter to most of the molds some times the glitter made it so you couldn't see the item in the mold . I also had some pieces that had big air pockets.
But here is what I learned in the next batch I will pour a tiny bit of resin in the mold then add the item then add a little more resin then add the glitter and see how that goes.
Out of the 17 pieces I cast,10 came out close to or as good as I hoped. and since this was a first attempt thats not bad I still have most of the unmixed resin. Wich costs roughly $11.95 but of course I used a 40% off coupon and the mold was $8.99 but of course I used a 40% off coupon on that too. I had the wire that I used for the bales so this is not an expensive project. I added jump rings to the finished items. they take 24 hrs to soft cure(can be taken out of mold but you might leave finger prints if not careful and 72 to hard cure. Now I need to find some more things to fit in the mold.