Beaded copper pendant

I created this pendant in the process of playing with ideas for making metal art charms.  I am participating in a 3 for 3 personal art charm swap on one of my groups. For this group, art charms need to be created rather than simply assembled so I went on line looking for inspiration for metal art charms.  And for this swap, they also need to be all metal.  I found a couple of ideas that I thought were worth pursing then headed to the craft room.
I started with very thick copper wire and formed the heart using my pliers, etc.  I am not a jewelery maker so it took some time to get it looking acceptable.  Once I was happy with it, I took it outside, placed it on a heavy metal plate and mashed it with a hammer until it was flattened to my liking.  Next, I hit it with a hammer with a textured head which really helped make it look handcrafted.  DH did not mind my borrowing of his tools!!  It turned out exactly like I wanted it too!!  Next, I used thread like copper wire and added seed beads.  I also used the wire to cinch up the middle and to add the jump ring.  Once I was done and admiring my work - it looked pretty cool! I realized the charms were supposed to be all metal!!  In the end this one is really too big to be a charm so it has graduated to being a pendant and I have repeated the process with smaller shapes for creating the art charms for the swap which I will be posting later.
This was a totally fun process and yielded some very unique looking pieces.

Therese

Zipper Challenge

On MMS, they issued a Zipper Challenge - create something using a zipper!  I decided to use part of a zipper as a frame on a project I was working on.
I cut one side of a zipper just long enough to frame this metal embellishment and sewed the ends together and then sewed a basting stitch through the fabric part of the zipper and gathered it in to create a flat bezel.  The metal  embellishment is an old earring from which I removed all of the innards and replaced them with turquoise sequins. I placed it over the zipper bezel  and sewed them together using clear thread.  Worked out perfectly for what I wanted for the project I was working on which I will share later.

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

Paperclip bracelets

My grand daughter was visiting recently and she wanted to make paperclip jewelry!!  I was not sure what that meant so after a bit of an explanation we decided we would give it a go so we got started.  We straightened some paper clip, added a metal charm and made a loop to capture it.  We threaded on some beads and made another loop.  I had to use two paperclips per side but she was able to use only one.  We bent the beaded wire to conform to our wrists and added clasps!!  They turned out very well!!

Therese

Blog Giveaway!! Book pendants

BLOG GIVEAWAY!!
Winners:
Marilyn C, Brenda F
and Cindy C!!

January 14th,
Congratulations to the three winners!!  Thanks to all of you who left comments on this post!!!  It was great to hear from so many of you!!  All three prizes will be off to the winners in today's mail.
Happy Creating!!
Therese

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My first blog give away - what a great way to start the new year!!!
These three little book pendants are the prizes!!  To enter the draw please leave a comment that includes your email address on this post and I will randomly draw three winners on Monday, January 13th!!
So I look forward to your comments and please feel free to spread the word to your friends and family and any online groups you belong to!!

Therese

Dragon scale necklace

A dragon scale necklace I created for my grand daughter for Christmas!!  She was reading a dragon book earlier this year and I thought she would enjoy a reminder of the experience.  I cut the scales out of shrink plastic, punched the holes and then coloured them with alcohol inks. I love the wonderful variations I was able to get.  I shrunk them with my heat gun and shaped them over a metal teaspoon (old to be used for crafts only) while they were hot!!  I attached them to a silver chain using split rings and attached a little heart charm on the back which I signed on the inside.
It turned out better than I imagined!!

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

Book pendants

I am involved in a 12 Days of Christmas giftie swap on one of my groups and decided to create little book pendants for each of my swap partners!  I have been wanting to make some of these for quite some time and finally decided that now was the time.  I did quite a bit of internet research to see what others were doing and finally settled on making a real book - covers with a spine with accordion pages bound into it.  Here you can see the beginnings of my cover.  Two squares and a long rectangle for my spine of light weight chipboard laying on my handmade decorative paper.

Here you can see the chipboard pieces covered with the decorative paper (faux leather) and an extra strip added in the middle over the spine to create a bit of interest in the final book design.  I glued these pieces down with glue stick and pressed them to make sure every thing was well adhered.

After I had made all the covers and they had been pressed over night I added a 1/8" eyelet in a coordinating colour at the top of the spine.  This will be used to attach the book to the string using a jump ring.

Next I created all the accordion folded pages for the books.  I measured the inside dimension of my cover and cut the strips appropriately and folded them using mountain and valley folds.  I glued two strips together to made enough pages to fit in each book. I see that I have my cover sitting up side down in the photo.  The eyelet should be at the top!!

Here are all the pieces I needed to finish up the books.  I used a small piece of plastic canvas to bind my pages into a signature using coordinating thread to bind them.  I used a fairly slim needle and regular sewing thread (doubled) to sew my pages.

Here is a close up of how I bound the pages to the canvas.  I drew the thread up through a hole in the canvas, went across one of the valley folds and down through a hole on the other side.  Up again, through the same hole in the canvas and across the next valley fold and down the same hole on the other side.  There were three holes across the canvas so I just distributed the valley folds among them.  Once the pages were bound to the canvas, I added a jump ring to the eyelet and hot glued the signature into the cover.   I added the tie - a short piece of string and a bead to the covers and glued my end pages to the inside covers.  That completed the books.  I added a few danglies - a key and beaded charm to each of them to give them some character and make them unique!!

Here is a photo of all little book pendants I made!!!

They were really fun to make though a bit time consuming as I was inventing them as I was going along!!  I really enjoyed making them all different and using some of my hand decorated paper which made them unique!!  I am really glad I added some colour to the spines because that makes them look more like real books.
The recipients will be able to add to them any thing they wish - a favorite quote, a current affirmation, a poem they have written or even small photos or artwork to make them their own!!

We start our gift opening today!!  I had Day 1, so by now everyone will have opened their little gifts from me.

I made a few extras so will be having a give way!!
Check out this blog post for the details!!

Therese

Jewelry display

I have been wanting to create this frame for my jewelry for a while to prevent having to untangle my chains every time I want to wear a piece but it has taken some time to clarify the vision and find the pieces I needed.    So, I found the frame and the plastic aida canvas to put in it at a thrift store a while back and I decided to put it all together the other day.  It worked out so well!!!!!!!!!!!  I created little "N" hooks using silver paper clips to hang each piece of jewelry on!!

I used hot glue to adhere the plastic 14 count aida canvas to the inside of the frame on the back.  I tacked it first and then added another good bead all the way around to make sure that it will support the weight of the jewelry.  I did have to vet my collection to get it all on the frame but that needed to be done anyway.  So, now all my pieces are at hand and I can see everything I own.  It will make it easier to decide what works with any outfit and I will likely wear it more often because there will be no more tangling issues!!

Therese

Fabric bead jewelry - bracelet and earrings!

So, here is my fabric bead bracelet!!and earrings!!  I found some turquoise and black beads in my stash which worked well with my fabric beads so I strung them onto stretchy cord to make my bracelet.  In the end, it was too long so I took it apart and removed two of the fabric beads which worked much better. The two beads just sitting there seemed to be pleading to be used so I decided to create a pair of earrings to match!!  Worked out so well!!  I love the contrast of the matte fabric beads and the shine of the other beads.
I did find that the beads became a little fuzzy at the ends as they were unstrung and restrung so sewing the beginning of the beads would be a good idea in that it would keep the channel more integral. I will consider if there is a way of adding a sturdier material at the core of the bead to reduce the wear and tear of stringing and restringing the beads.
I have managed to clean up the supplies that I had laid ALL OVER in my quest to find everything I needed to make up this project - beads, stretchy cord, findings, etc.

Therese