2016 #16 Buckle To Beauty {by Helen Chilton}

2016 Topic 16: Beads,Charms and Dangles

Hi everyone Helen here. Tonight I'd like to share with you this evening with a post about making jewellry.
I was digging through my stash and found an old belt buckle that I picked up somewhere just waiting to be altered. It's quite ornate so makes a lovely frame for a pendant - a bit of Snowflake paint and Treasure Gold shabbies it up beautifully.

I always like making miniature art and working out how to fit things together so this was an ideal project for me. I'm using Vintage Ink and the Dog stamps which also coordinate well.

Rub the buckle with Snowflake paint (I don't know where the middle prong went!):

Roughly colour a piece of silver metal with your chosen colour of alcohol ink:

Sand it back lightly:

Stamp the images from ID02 in black StazOn:

ID02

Frame with the buckle and start rubbing in some Treasure Gold (I used White Fire and Pewter):

Draw round the buckle with an embossing pen and cut out:

Glue buckle to metal, flip over and emboss the back with a paper stump:

Then you can start adding twiddly bits:

I inserted a wire headpin top and bottom to make loops for the chain and charm:

This is very easy to make - it would also work well with the owl head on the same stamp plate. When making something small like this you need to have an image that is clear - I chose the face because it's quite open and the background can shine through. You only need tiny amounts of metal/embellishments - it's a good way to use up scraps.
After making this I was on a roll and made a brooch with the same stamp set:

Hop on over to my blog to see how I made it!
Helen
Oh Helen I just love this, the buckle was lovely to start with but you made it extra special, it turned out amazing. All the twiddly bits look like they were just meant to be there. A great image to choose too, the vintage stamps really compliment the jewellery pieces perfectly. ~Darcy

We would love to see how you interpret this Beads,Charms and Dangles topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #16: Beads,Charms and Dangles, on this page HERE.
All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas, particularly if you were inspired directly by their post. All links go in the draw to win a £50 voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Beads,Charms and Dangles link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Sept 4th 2016. The winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

2016 #16 Hello Beads {by Anneke de Clerck}

 2016 Topic 16: Beads,Charms and Dangles

Hi everyone Anneke here.

Tonight I'd like to share with you a post about beads, charms and dangles. I have tons of beads in my stash and I love making cards. No wonder I use beads on my cards from time to time :)

I've made a set of cards and worked with a simple technique for the background. I layered colors of paint on top of each other using my gel printing plate. For this project I've chosen an older Squiggly Ink stamp set, one from the Flora and Fauna series. Love the shape of the stamps, it's a very versatile set. At the end I'll demonstrate a few possibilities to add beads on cards.

Let's get started.

Step One: Gelli Printing

I worked with my 15 x 15 cm gel printing plate and Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics Zesty Zing, Limelight, Caribbean Sea, Mermaid, Lake Wanaka, Ice Blue, Pixie Dust, Candy Floss, London Bus, Prawn and Bougainvillea. I've cut 4 cards from a sheet of PaperArtsy Smoothy 340grs cardstock.

I started by spreading a small amount of Candy Floss randomly  to the gel printing plate with my fingers. I made a monoprint on each card. Next I repeated this step with Prawn. I changed back and fort with the order of the cards while printing so each card received the same amount of paint during the printing process.

I continued printing, one color at a time. By using this technique the colors are sitting on top of each other, they do not blend together. So there is no chance to end up with muddy colors. It's a simple technique I learned from Kate Crane. Not a lot of thinking involved, just playing!

Step Two: Stencilling

After the monoprinting was finished I added dots by applying Mermaid and Zesty Zing through a stencil (Donna Downey Signature stencil 'Halftone Dots'). 

I created white dots using Snowflake and a the Donna Downey Signature Stencil 'Grunge Halftone Dots'.

I added black accents using Archival Ink Jet Black and a stencil (Donna Downey Signature Stencil 'Mini Alpha Rerun').

Step Three: Stamping

I stamped flowers, flower centres and leaves from the Squiggly Ink Flora and Fauna 5 set on scraps of painted paper with Archival Ink Jet Black and cut out.

Step Four: Assembly and Embellishing

On each card I put together a flower, used a strip of painted paper as a stem. I stamped the same flower on gesso-ed vintage booktext as well, used these prints to further decorate the cards. I used the small stamps from the set to do some background stamping. 

Time to add some beads now :)

I decorated two of the cards with a row of dangling beads on a cord.

With my We R Memory Keepers Crop A Dile I set an eyelet on which I knotted the cord.

On this card I attached a strip of painted tissue paper to the bottom of the card using mini staples. I decorated the card with beads, charms and cord as shown. I make sure to only use small beads on my cards.

Here I glued small beads in matching colors to the bottom of the card. I added an orange one to the flower centre as well. I generaly attach beads with micro glue dots or with a very small amount of Tacky Glue. 

The complete set.

I'm sure you have lots of beads and charms in your stash as well. Go get them, give it a try and join the challenge. It would be lovely to see what you come up with!

Happy creating!

Anneke

My blog

http://somefiddlingonthekitchentable.blogspot.be

Pinterest
https://www.pinterest.com/anneke1/

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/somefiddlingonthekitchentable/

Facebook
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I just adore the way you put colours together and the amazing results you create so easily! It really is a joy to follow your process, and so fantastic to end up with these perfect cards! Thank you! ~Leandra

We would love to see how you interpret this Beads,Charms and Dangles topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #16  HERE.

All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas,  particularly if you were inspired directly by their post.

All links go in the draw to win a £50 voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Beads,Charms and Dangles link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Sept 4th 2016. The winner will be announced 2  hours later at 19:00.

2016 #16 Charming Shrink Plastic and Clay {by Lucy Edmondson}

 2016 Topic 16: Beads,Charms and Dangles

Hi everyone, Lucy from Lucy's True Colours here.

Tonight I'd like to share with you a post about making clay and shrink plastic charms to decorate a box, together with a background technique using Crayola Slick Stix.

I love using stamps to make my own charms, and both shrink plastic and clay have always appealed to me: shrink plastic because of the way it miniaturizes everything whilst retaining the detail, and clay because I love the solidity of the finished piece. I have kept them black and white on this occasion, along with the box itself, and offset them against brightly coloured fun crayon backgrounds.

Step 1: Charms

To make the crown charms I used the two crowns from Lynne Perrella LPC 003

and LPC 007 

I rolled the oven bake Sculpey out to a quarter inch thickness and then inked the stamps with Versafine in Onyx Black, pressing in well. I then cut then out with a craft knife. The oven baking will heat set the ink. You can use a sanding block around the edges after.

Step 2: Shrink Plastic
Next I used the same crowns and the pen from Lynne Perrella LPC 030 to make the shrink plastic charms, this time using Jet Black StazOn and white shrink plastic. 

Here's a tip, don't do as I did here. I tend to be a bit stingy with my supplies and as the stamps are so small I thought I would use up my scraps. It's not a good idea to do this, particularly if you want several identical items, as you can get some distortion. If I understand it correctly, shrink plastic is manufactured by heating and stretching pieces of plastic in one direction, so if you use your scraps you are likely to change the orientation of the piece so it will shrink in a different direction and might be slightly wider or longer than the item next to it. So it is advisable to use a whole sheet of shrink plastic and work across and down it in rows. 

Anyhow, cut the pieces out with a slight border around them, and shrink with your heat tool and flatten with a mounting block. 

Step 3: Slick Stix
Next I had a bit of fun with Crayola Slick Stix, which are new to me. They are twistable water soluble crayons, very similar to gelatos and distress crayons, but cheaper. They don't come in as many colours but they blend well to create additional colours. I painted my pieces of card with gesso and for my project I wanted two separate colour ways. For my first, I used yellow, orange, blue, and green. I applied them one colour at a time as shown, blending them with my finger as far as they would go before adding the next colour beside it, blending that into it and away from it as far as it would go.

Step 4: Water
To blend and dilute further, I spritzed the card quite generously with water and waited a few moments for some bleached spots to appear for extra interest. I then used a flat paintbrush to go evenly back and forth from left to right with absorbent paper underneath to pick up any colour coming away. As you can see, the top half is much more blended than the bottom. The blue crayon has created an additional shade of green. Spritz again if you want more water spots or more dilution but heat set before stamping. 

Step 5: And repeat
Repeat the process with the two shades of Blue, Purple, and Red crayons.  Stamp a selection of Lynne Perrella images onto a mixture of the two colours of cardstock, clear embossing with Versafine in Onyx black.

Step 6: Box Backgrounds
As you can see here, I used stamps from Lynne Perrella Eclectica LPC003 LPC014  LPC030 LPC034. I added some white highlights with gesso and some extra colour with Fibralo pens on the final pieces. I cut the pieces to fit the box compartments and it took me a loooooong time deciding on placement! In addition to the stamped pieces shown, as you can see in the final pictures I decided to use the text stamp from LPC 014  as the best way to show off the charms. 

Step 7: Box Front
Now for the box itself. I sanded and gessoed it, and then painted it with Fresco Snowflake. Then, holding my breath, I carefully clear embossed the pen from Lynne Perrella  onto all four sides of the front of the box with Versafine Onyx Black. You need to be tentative with the heat gun because of the clear film in the frame. I neatened around the edges of the front of the aperture by gluing a line of tiny black accent beads. I lined the inside compartments with spare pieces of the prepared cardstock in the relevant colours and adhered the stamped pieces in place. Finally, I glued the shrink plastic and clay charms into position.

In this final close up photo, you can see where I have used a little gesso on the faces etc, and some Fibralo pens.

I had such fun playing around with the crayon backgrounds for this project and I love how the black and white has worked against the bright colours! The charms were easy, but it was such a fiddly project to decide which stamped images looked best where. It looks so simple now it is finished! I hope you will have a go making your own stamped charms in shrink plastic and clay, perhaps experimenting with some different colours.

Lucy Blog: Lucy's True Colours Twitter @CraftyLuce

Lucy I love your gorgeous frame with the clever, very beautiful niches decorated so perfectly! All the little charms sit so well in thier individual frames! This project is adorable! ~Leandra

We would love to see how you interpret this Beads,Charms and Dangles topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #16 HERE.

All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas,  particularly if you were inspired directly by their post.

All links go in the draw to win a £50 voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Beads,Charms and Dangles link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Sept 4th 2016. The winner will be announced 2  hours later at 19:00.

2016 #16 Shrink Jewellery {by Wanda Hentges}

2016 Topic 16: Beads,Charms and Dangles

Hi everyone!! It's Wanda Hentges (artbywanda.blogspot.com) here. Tonight I'd like to share with you a post about creating jewelry/charms/dangles with shrink plastic. 

I enjoy making jewelry and charms, even beads, with shrink plastic and this topic was a good motivator to get some done. Years ago I did some pieces with this same basic design!! It was great revisiting this and it will be fun to wear these or I might add the charm to a book or card. I have a scarf I want to wear the pin with. Since these are really light weight, the pin shouldn't "pull" the scarf when I have it on.

I'm using white shrink plastic and 2 oval punches. I prepped the shrink plastic by sanding it well with a sanding block. I sanded in four directions - horizontal, vertical, and both diagonal directions. Sanding in multiple directions gives tooth to the plastic and the surface doesn't show any of the sanding lines, it's smooth but not shiny smooth. 

Before shrinking, the larger oval I used is about 3" x 3 7/8". The smaller oval is about 2 7/16" x 3 5/16". After shrinking, the large oval is about 1 1/4" x 1 5/8". You could also use dies to cut the shrink plastic and they could be any shape - oval, circle, triangle, square, etc. - or go free form and cut whatever you want. 

 If you are using 2 shapes the same but different sizes and you want to place them together with even edges then it's important to cut both pieces of your plastic from the sheet in the same direction. The reason is the plastic doesn't shrink exactly the same amount in all directions. 

I used the larger oval to create the bottom piece of each project. I put texture in the piece by stamping the hot plastic with a rubber stamp inked with clear ink. I used the largest floral image on EEB08 and VersaMark ink. 

EEB08

I placed the piece of plastic on a thin cardboard covered with parchment paper, and put it in my oven at about 325 degrees. While it was shrinking I inked up the stamp. You have to work fast as the plastic cools very quickly. When it's done shrinking (you can tell this because as the piece shrinks it contorts and then will go back to laying flat when it is done), you take it from the oven, immediately place the stamp over the piece and press hard. You can even just set the cardboard directly on the floor, place the stamp on top, and step on it. You hold this for a few seconds and then take the stamp off. 

 You are left with a textured piece, that texture determined by your stamp. *I thought I'd taken a picture of the piece with just the texture in it (not finished) but I don't seem to have one* 

Below is the first project I did and I turned it into a pin. The bottom piece of plastic was done exactly as explained and then I used Treasure Gold in both White Fire and Brass to bring out the texture. I also put the Treasure Gold on the outside edge. After buffing, I sealed the piece with Treasure Sealer. 

For the top piece of plastic I stamped the flourish from EEB08 with Fresco Finish Paint Gold and let it dry, I then painted in the image with Hey Pesto and Glass Blue thinning the paint a bit with water to keep it very light. Any colouring done on shrink plastic before shrinking comes out darker after shrinking. To add colour around the edge of the piece I used Glass Blue and a fan brush to lightly make wispy lines. 

The picture below shows my cardboard covered with parchment paper, a pot holder, a large kitchen spoon, the plastic ready to shrink and an extra small piece of parchment to lay over the plastic when I press it. Again I used my oven to shrink the piece. You can use a heat tool but I like using the oven for these because the whole piece is evenly hot for either pressing into or shaping. 

Here is the piece after shrinking and using the spoon to make it domed. Once shrunk I took it out of the oven, quickly (but carefully) picked it up, put it on the spoon, placed a piece of parchment paper over it and pressed over it with the oven mitt.

 I actually found this to be a bit difficult as the plastic wanted to slide and you can't see through the mitt. I even had an edge that I did not like how it laid so I put the piece back in the oven to get hot again and then reshaped it without using the mitt. Yep, it was hot and I kept changing fingers but it was easier to control. After the fact I thought perhaps band-aids on my thumbs would have helped - protection against heat but I'd still be able to see what I was doing. 

A side view. This picture was taken after the first time I shrunk it and my long sides just didn't shape as well as I would have liked. See how it sticks up in the centre area... and the other side even did it a bit more.

I sealed the stamped piece with Krylon Crystal Clear. If this was going on a card or book, I might not have bothered to seal the pieces but if it's something I'm going to wear, I prefer it to be sealed. Once both pieces were dry, I glued them together and added the pin back. You can see in this picture how much nicer the front piece is shaped after being heated and shaped a second time. 

Here is my second piece. Before heating and pressing the bottom piece of plastic I punched a 1/8" hole in the plastic. When shrunk this leaves a place to add a jump ring or to just tie it onto something with string or ribbon. If you know you are going to use a thicker string or ribbon then start with a 1/4" hole before shrinking. 

 I painted the plastic with London Bus before shrinking. I just used my finger to paint it on very thin around the edges. No need to bother with the centre since it gets covered. The heating and stamping was done the same as with the first one but it wasn't stamped with the same area of that large flower image - notice how the pattern looks different then the first project. Once cooled I used Treasure Gold White Fire to enhance the texture including putting it on the edge. I then buffed it and again sealed with Treasure Sealer being sure my hole was open and not filled with sealer. 

For the front piece of plastic I stamped the small flower from EEB07 with Slate paint and let it dry. 

EEB07

Then I decided to paint it in with Neocolor II again keeping the colour light so that it wouldn't be too dark after shrinking. I also used the fan brush to add streaks of colour around the edge. 

When I made the first piece it was hard to keep the shrunk piece in place on the metal spoon. I wondered if using a wooden spoon would make it a bit easier so I used one instead of the metal and it did work better. 

 I also tried the whole band-aids on the thumbs idea :-) It worked really well. So I shrank the piece, pulled it from the oven, immediately put it on the spoon, covered it with the small piece of parchment and used my thumbs to do the pressing giving it a nice dome shape although not quite as high as with the other spoon. I sealed this piece with Krylon Crystal Clear and attached it to the back piece. 

I had a lot of fun making these and am itching to do more. I had actually not thought of doing a free form piece until I was writing up this post. I think that would be way cool maybe even adding a flip or curl here and there. I am looking forward to seeing what you come up with. Please be sure to link up your projects on the challenge post. 

Thanks for following along!!!!

Hugs, Wanda

Blog, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

Ohh the brooch is so pretty Wanda, and a bonus of being lightweight. Great colouring details and brilliant shaping tips. I love how you achieved the background texture, just genius. ~Darcy 

We would love to see how you interpret this Beads,Charms and Dangles topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #16: Beads,Charms and Dangles, on this page HERE. All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas, particularly if you were inspired directly by their post. 

All links go in the draw to win a £50 voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Beads,Charms and Dangles link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Sept 4th 2016. The winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.