I spent a ton of time reading about resin on the internet and some books.

Well, I purchased resin, resin color dye, a mold, release spray.
I mixed my first batch and made shallow top layers. Added inclusions, mixed a 2nd layer and covered everything. After that dried, I mixed a 3rd layer with dye. That was the disaster. If you put too much dye in the resin, it will stay gooey forever. Most of my pieces came out okay but the 2 I wanted to to turn into some funky earrings didn’t make it. There was a tad too much dye I guess.