Sew Charming

Sometimes life just comes together in the right way. IAA is having a charm swap this weekend and I spent some time the last 2 weeks coming up with a fabric design for a charm. (I'll post pics of them tomorrow, hopefully.) And then I read on PaperArtsy's site about this contest they're having and everything just fell into place. Why not make charms? So I made this bracelet.
Some of the charms are shrink-plastic and the rest are made out of a fabric called duck-cloth. I cut it in strips and then stitched it together--stuffing it slightly and then attached the charm via a eyelet. I have to say, that my crop-a-dile was perfect for punching the holes in the fabric. When they were done I used a little fray-check on the sides.

All the stamps are, of course, paperartsy.

Goodness, goodness, goodness!

Where did the week go? I have no idea. It's like a lost three whole days in there somewhere! I have very little work to show for this week, mostly because I am working on a couple of really big projects that are slow going. But tonight I did sit down and make a little charm necklace because I was feeling the need for some instant-art-gratification. Here it is:


I know it's hard to tell, because there is a glare in the first picture, but there is a little baby bird sitting in the house! Hopefully I will get my big projects done this weekend and have more work to show.
Happy Friday everyone!

Bottle Cap Pendant How-to

Lately, I've been having fun making these little pendants and thought I'd post a little how-to!
Here is what you'll need: UTEE, bottle cap, wire, pliers, scissors, heavy weight paper and image printed on heavy weight paper (this is important because thinner paper will absorb the UTEE.)
If you are using a bottle cap off of a bottle, you need to remove the plastic lining by heating it with a heat-gun and then pulling it off with pliers. Or you could buy them at a craft store which don't have the plastic in them. Once it's ready to go you need to cut out the paper to line the inside.

Trim your image down so that it'll fit inside as well. I like to cut the bottom so that it's curved and sits nicely in the bottom of the cap. At this point you can embellish it as you like, remembering that you will need to use heavy weight paper.

At this point you need to add your wire--I like to make a loop that twice the depth of the bottle cap. It needs to be a little long because you're going to bend it back. I use a glue dot to attach it to the top of the bottle cap. You really don't need to glue it down, but I like to just for security.

Turn your oven on to 250 and fill the cap with UTEE. When the oven is hot, put the cap in to bake, lining the sheet with some brown craft paper. Let it cook and watch the utee melt. You will probably need to do this step twice because as the the UTEE melts, it only will fill 1/2 the cap.

When it's all cooled off, use your pliers to bend the wire back so that it no longer sticks straight up. Add a jump ring and you're all ready to go!
Hope you enjoyed the how-to and as always, if you have any questions please feel free to email me!

Alcohol Inks-Shrink-Plastic-Tutorial

After swapping out my shrink plastic charms last weekends some of the ladies in the group had questions about my process so I thought I'd just go ahead and post a tutorial on how I did it.
Here's what you'll need: Shrink Film ( I like Grafix brand for consistency of shrink) stamp, permanent ink, alcohol inks, dauber, hole punch and clear embossing powder or diamond glaze.
The first step is to ink the film. Just load up your dauber and go. The colors will really intensify when it shrinks so don't worry if it doesn't look like you've got a lot of color.

Next you need to flip your shrink-plastic over and stamp the image on it. Permanent inks and alcohol inks don't play well together so it's important not to stamp them on the same side. Again, remember that the color will intensify with shrinking. I am using a pale purple color here. I found it helpful to do a test one without the alcohol inks just to see what the stamp and the ink will look like shrunk.
Once this is dry, cut out the image and punch a hole. I always use my biggest hole punch since the hole will shrink with everything else.
Pop it into the oven at 250 (you can use your heat gun and a heat proof mat for this also.) If you're cooking in the oven use a brown piece of paper (like from a grocery bag) to cook on. This keeps it from sticking. Don't panic if it curls. They do that. Let it keep cooking--you'd be surprised 99% of the time they work themselves out flat. When it's done shrinking give it about 20 more seconds and then pull it out. Using a heating pad or metal spatula flatten it just a tiny bit more.
Once it's out and cooled you need to seal it. You can use diamond glaze (which I am too impatient to let dry) or clear embossing powder. I like to attach a little text to the back of my charms, so after cutting it out and securing it using just a tiny bit of glue, I coat the charm in clear embossing powder. You can do this by sprinkling it on, or using a clear embossing ink.



Heat it up--you can use your heat gun or just pop it back into your oven. And viola!
To give you some idea of the shrink ratio, here is a photo of the stamp in my hand and then shrunk charm in my hand.



So tiny and cute!

Charmed, I'm sure

The Indiana Altered Art group is having a charm swap this month and I finally finished up my charms. I used shrink-plastic, which is one of my favorite mediums. I'm pleased with how they turned out, I think they look a bit like stained glass.
Here is what they look like on the front.

This is the back--each one has a different word on the back so that they're not all the same. I did them in different color variations too.
Lastly, here is one all done-up in it's packaging, ready to be mailed out.