Zentangle Art Charms

 I have been working on Zentangle art charms for a personal swap.  The above are my first attempts which ended up being much too large to be art charms - the feathers are 2.5"!!  I am very happy with them so they will be put aside and used for a different project.  

I used Rough and Ready Translucent Shrink plastic.  I used a fine tip Sharpie to create my designs on the smooth side and coloured them on the rough back side using coloured pencils except for the one on the far right which I coloured with alcohol inks.  I should have been much more light handed with the ink because once they shrink the colour is much darker.  Lesson learned!!

 So, at my second attempt I created the designs much smaller so they would end up closer to 1.25" once they were shrunk.  I was then able to add the findings and danglies and have them much closer to the 1.5" criteria for the exchange.  I created two so I can keep one and will be sending the other to my partner.  These are the mandalas I created.

I changed up my leaf design on my second attempt because it was harder to created the thin point at the smaller scale.  Still very happy with how these turned out.  I made beaded danglies for them.  

Loved how these turned out too.  I simply reduced my original hand drawn design and tried to replicate my original zentangles but as you can see I had made a few changes!!  I added metal charms to the zentangled ones to create some movement and interest!!  

So I will have these ready to go to my partner in tomorrow's mail.  I am a few days late because of having to redo in the smaller size but all in all I am sure she will be happy with them.  Looking forward to hers in return mail.  

Therese

Paper bead art charms!

 I am participating in a "3 for 3"personal swap with a member of one of my groups, Art Charms. The theme for this swap was Paper Beads.  I decided to expand on the paper bead idea and came up with three different charms.
For these on the left, I cut silver foil card using the Tattered Flowers (TH SX) die being sure to flip my paper so I could glue them back to back!!  I cut a middle layer out of regular cardstock and trimmed out a sliver so I could insert my double eye pin which I created using silver papers clips which you can see below.  Once the glue was dry I applied alcohol inks to first one side than the other and also did the edges.  I love the look!!!! I created danglies for them using head pins and E beads.

 For these charms, I used chipboard circles which I sliced in half, trimmed out a little section for the head pin and glued them back together!!  I coloured both sides and the edges using Sharpie markers and punched 3/4" circles from decorative paper then glued one to each side.  I love the dynamic look of this alcohol ink paper !!  Used the rest of it on one of  these cards.  I added a black initial on each side and finished them off with matte sealer.

I glued a small piece of decorative paper to a rectangle of regular white paper and rolled these beads on thick wire so that the decorative paper would be on the outside.  Does not require a very big piece to cover the outside of a bead and that is the only place it really shows.  I trimmed them to size, coloured the ends with a Sharpie, inserted my eye pin and created a loop on the other end.  I added little pieces of washi tape to decorate the outside and created coordinating danglies from head pins and E beads.

You can see here that I used pliers to straighten a paper clip, created loops on each end and then cut them in half.  They were plenty long enough to create my art charms.
These were very fun to make!!!!  I am stringing a metal penchant chain to the inside of a frame and will be showcasing my swapped art charms in it!!

Therese

Bottle cap pendants

Another project we tackled when my grand daughter was visiting.  We had collected several bottle caps from an event we attended and thought we would apply some creativity and turn them into pendants.
It took a little more effort to flatten these ones as they had already been crimped onto bottles.  Read - lots of prying with pliers and hammering iwth mallets!!
We printed the sayings off of the internet, glued them into our bottle caps and added beads and bling.  For some of them we also added some clear dimensional paint (clear sun catcher paint). Once they were dry we added a string and some danglies using jump rings.  We created our own jump rings using paperclips.  You just straighten the paper clip, wrap tightly around a skewer, remove and cut down one side with wire snips - quick and inexpensive jump rings!!  She took a few home to continue to craft with.

Therese

My little book pendant!

Here is a close up of my little book pendant!!  I added a heart charm to mine because hearts are my favorite thing!!  It was fun to create little danglies for each one of them!!

You check here to see the details of how these little book pendants were made!!

Therese