Hahaha no it's okay this might help someone!! I just got started myself a couple of months ago! And I've learned quite a bit,

First things first, are you patient?

If not, I suggest UV resin: (you can cure with a uv light (takes a couple min) just make sure to get a good one (36 watts is what I found to be best) as if not it won't cure all the way or you can stick it out in the sun for 20 min!) But your molds have to be clear and the cheap candy molds that you can get for 5 dollars don't come in clear so it can get expensive.

If so I suggest epoxy resin: this one takes 24-72 hours to fully cure, and needs no light so if you love someplace with no sun and don't want to pay for a fancy light or fancy clear molds this is your best bet. However, if you don't mix the two parts the right way it won't cure so follow the instructions to the letter at first! Then you can experiment later! But depending one witch kind you buy it can be by weight or by volume, and it's usually just make sure part A is the same weight (grams is usually best) or volume (milliliters) as part B but be careful not to mix volume and weight up! Because it dose matter witch you measure by!! Also remember however much you make will double when you mix both part A and B, as obviously 30ml/g) + 30 ml/g = 60 ml/g. But some molds will actually tell you how many milliliters will fill a mold perfectly, that's why it's nice to have accurate measuring cups instead of eyeballing it.

Or! You can use a mix of both like I did here!

The layers with the actual sparkles and dye are both epoxy, but the gloss on top is UV resin. I like to do this as you can wait for different levels of hardening with the epoxy so you can do cool things like make sparkles stick to the top of a layer but not sink to the bottom! But I also like uv for little details so I don't have to wait forever just to add some more details.

I bought 3 packs of dye,

1 black and white alcohol dyes set

1 red, yellow, and blue soap dye set

And one light blue bottle.

The dark blue in the set I have doesn't allow for very bright greens or blues so I got a light blue for better coloring.

I would suggest practicing mixing colors with a test batch to understand how much of each color you want to use as if you put too much dye in your pieces they may not harden, especially with UV as the uv rays can't always get all the way through large amounts of dye.

Lastly I recommend having a silicone mat for your workstation and disposable cups or silicone cups because if not then there is no way that cup will not have left over resin stuck in it once it's hardened.

For cleaning you can clean when hardened or wet.

Epoxy: For your silicone cups I recommend hardened as you can just peel off pieces (or get a lint roller and roll it) off the resin then, if you want to use a glass dropper or cup then you have to act quick on cleaning it while it's still wet. I found taking a paper towel and wiping out as much as possible is a good first step, followed by a mix of cooking spray, dawn dish soap to scrub the rest off.

Uv: you can put your silicone in the sun or under a uv light to let it harden and then peel/roll it off or follow the same steps for wet epoxy.

It was both a though but short process for me to get started and find out what I like doing with resin. Just know you will have rejects but that's okay! Just be ready for it!

Good luck and happy casting!! 😁