What Can Be Embedded in a Custom Epoxy Resin Table?

One of the most common questions I receive from clients is simple: “Can you put that in the table?”
The answer, almost always, is yes.
A custom epoxy resin table is not just a piece of furniture. It is a vessel — a way to preserve something meaningful, rare, or beautiful inside a surface you will live with every day. Over the years I have embedded gemstones, dried flowers, ancient wood, gold leaf, personal mementos, and more into dining tables, coffee tables, and sculptural pieces that now sit in homes across Europe, the United States, and the Middle East.
Here is an honest guide to what is possible.

Gemstones and Crystals

Gemstone inclusions are among the most requested and most striking options for a custom epoxy dining table. Raw amethyst clusters, malachite slabs, lapis lazuli, rose quartz, tiger’s eye, and agate geodes can all be fully encased in clear resin — preserved in a way that lets light pass through them from above.
The effect is unlike anything achievable with conventional materials. A geode embedded in the centre of a dining table becomes the focal point of the room. Gemstone fragments scattered through a river table create depth and movement. A single raw crystal positioned within a sculptural leg catches light from every angle as you move around it.
Gemstone inlays are a signature element of the Leonardo Gravina collection. They are one of the few things that genuinely cannot be replicated with any other furniture-making technique.
Popular choices: amethyst, agate, malachite, lapis lazuli, rose quartz, tiger’s eye, obsidian, selenite

Wood and Natural Timber

The combination of live-edge wood and epoxy resin is one of the most enduring in bespoke furniture. A river table — where two slabs of natural wood appear to float on either side of a flowing resin “river” — has become one of the most recognised forms in contemporary furniture design.
Beyond river tables, wood can be embedded more fully: bark textures, driftwood, reclaimed timber with natural cracks and voids, even fragments of ancient or fossilised wood. The epoxy preserves the grain, the character, and the history of the material permanently.
Combining wood species — walnut with oak, for example, or olive with elm — adds further visual complexity within a single piece.
Common applications: river tables, live-edge dining tables, coffee tables, bar tops

Dried and Preserved Flowers

Floral inclusions are one of the most personal options available. Dried flowers, petals, and botanical elements can be embedded within the resin in a way that suspends them as if still in bloom — permanently, without fading or decay.

A wedding bouquet. Flowers from a garden. A single pressed bloom from a meaningful location. These are the kinds of inclusions that transform a table into a keepsake.
The preparation process matters here: flowers must be fully dried and sealed before pouring, ensuring the resin cures correctly and the colours hold over time. When done properly, the result is a piece that tells a story that will outlast the people who commissioned it.
Popular choices: dried roses, lavender, pressed wildflowers, eucalyptus, dried peonies, chamomile

 

Gold Leaf and Metallic Elements

24-carat gold leaf, silver leaf, and copper foil can be embedded within or applied beneath a clear resin surface, creating effects that range from subtle shimmer to dramatic gilded panels.
Gold leaf beneath a deep pour of crystal-clear resin creates an effect of extraordinary depth — the gold appears to float inside the table, visible from above but unreachable. It is a technique I have used on pieces including the Amauri table, the work that first established the standards underlying this collection.
Metallic powders — gold, bronze, copper, platinum — can also be dispersed through the resin itself, creating gradient effects or dramatic veining patterns.

Shells, Coral, and Ocean Materials

Seashells, coral fragments, sea glass, and beach sand embedded in resin produce coastal and organic aesthetics that are consistently popular for holiday homes, beachside properties, and clients who want a piece connected to a specific place or coastline.
These inclusions work particularly well in coffee tables and side tables, where the surface is often viewed at close range.

Coins, Tokens, and Personal Objects

Small personal objects — coins, keys, medals, emblems — can be fully encased within a custom resin piece. Many clients use this to mark a significant date, a place, or a person. A collection of coins from every country visited. A coin from the year a business was founded. A key from a house that no longer exists.
The resin preserves them exactly as they are, indefinitely.

Pigments, Inks, and Colour

Beyond physical objects, the resin itself can be transformed through the use of pigments, metallic powders, alcohol inks, and resin dyes. Marble effects, deep ocean gradients, smoke patterns, translucent colour washes — these are achieved by working with the resin during the pour itself, guiding the movement of colour while the material is still fluid.
No two pours are identical. Every piece produced this way is genuinely unrepeatable.

What Cannot Be Embedded

In the interest of honesty: not everything is suitable. Organic materials that retain moisture — fresh flowers, living plants, anything wet — will disrupt the curing process and lead to clouding or decay over time. Materials must be fully dry and, where porous, sealed before encasing.
Food, liquids, and anything that will decompose are not suitable for permanent embedding.
Everything else is largely a conversation about what you want to preserve and what story you want the table to tell.

A Table Built Around You

The reason clients come to Leonardo Gravina for a custom epoxy resin table is not simply the material. It is the possibility that the piece can be built around something specific to them — a stone they brought back from a trip, a flower from their garden, a material that means something.
If you have something in mind — however unusual — reach out. The starting point for every commission is a conversation.

Leonardo Gravina handcrafts bespoke epoxy resin furniture and sculpture from his studio in Lanaken, Belgium. International shipping available. View the collection