A Pendant. . .well, a Keychain for Mom

This is my very first post as a Design Team Member for Globecraft & Piccolo.  I am so excited to be a part of this dynamic team! I hope you will enjoy my tutorial and please be sure to stop by the G&P blog daily to feast your eyes on more of the fabulous creations the Design Team has in store!

Let me tell you that I am not the most coordinated person, in fact, I am really clumsy.  It has gotten worse since I had my back surgery (almost 2 years ago) as my equilibrium is still trying to adjust to my “new” back – I often walk into walls, trip over my own two feet and other fun party tricks! I have always been clumsy and only recently have started to trust myself with sharp objects and other dangerous items.  I tell you this because it will make sense later on in the post.  Read on. 

My mom is my biggest fan – how could she not be? – and I love making her gifts and cards.  Unfortunately, my mom is legally blind due to glaucoma, but she does have some sight, depending on the time of day, the weather (sunny or cloudy) and how tired her eyes are.  When I saw these acrylic blanks and the adorable chipboard shapes from Globecraft & Piccolo, I knew Mom would love a pendant. 

The Items I Used:

• Oval Acrylic Craft Charm 
• Fine Flower & Vines Flourish Accents 
• Tiny Stars, Hearts, Flowers & Swirls (I used one heart) 
• Glasstique Gloss Finishing Glaze 
• Mardi Gras Embossing Enamel (I had already embossed the tiny heart) 
• Sharpie Marker in Green
• LuminArte Radiant Rain in Rich Cobalt
• Small Paint Brush
• Mrs. Grossman's Alphabet Stickers, black with clear background
• Blue Plastic Flower Gem
• Piece of Purple Shimmer Cardstock for backing
• Keychain (which is not listed in the store yet, but will be!)

The Fine Flower & Vines Flourishes naked :)

First thing I did was figure out my layout.  I knew I wanted the pendant to say Mom, to have flowers & hearts and be vibrant enough so she could see it.  I had colored the flower with Distress Markers first, but then I was worried that they’d run and I’d be left with a bare flower once they had contact with the Glasstique, so I recolored with a green Sharpie for the stem of the flower and LuminArte Rich Cobalt for the actual flowers.  Since LuminArte is also water soluble I knew there’d be some running of the color, but I wanted to give it a try and I felt a halo effect would almost enhance the pendant.  I colored the flower & stem quite a few times, letting it dry thoroughly in between coloring.

The beginning of the layout

Now I had to dig through my immense stash of letter stickers.  I confess, letters and fonts are another crafty addiction of mine and I had quite a bit of stickers to choose from.  And of course, the last bunch I looked at had the perfect black letters on a clear backing from Mrs. Grossman.  I stuck those on the acrylic base and then fooled with the flower and the little heart (that I had previously embossed with Mardi Gras Embossing Enamel when I was using the enamel on a card I made).  Once I was happy with the placement, I glued everything down.  Let that dry overnight, just to be sure.  I also had a hell of a time getting the blue covers off the acrylic, which was nothing new, and in hindsight, I should have left the back cover on the pendant until I was done.  But nooooo, I had to take all the covers off - my mistake!

The last step was to cover the entire design with Glasstique.  I hadn’t worked with this top coat yet, but I have worked with similar products in the past.  I bit the bullet and slowly squeezed the Glasstique in the middle of the pendant and let it flow naturally over the front.  Beautiful.  I left the pendant alone for about 8 hours.  When I went to check on it, I noticed that some of the Glasstique had flowed over the sides and went under the acrylic piece, (see why I should of left the back on?) and in my terror that I would have Glasstique stuck to the back I picked the pendant up to clean off the back before it had dried completely.  Well, in doing that I also cause a ripple and a fingerprint in the front, right were the “o” in Mom was. And then I dropped it (see, this is the clumsy part) but thankfully no more damage was done and I was able to pick the cat hairs off the pendent.  OK – not to worry – I let the piece dry completely and then I figured I’d be able to fix it somehow. 

My fix was a fiasco.  I thought if I dabbed just a bit of the Glasstique where the ripple and finger print were it would magically meld itself into the already dry coating and would be fixed.  Nope.  So now, I had a blob over the ripple and fingerprint – the good news being I couldn’t see the previous mistakes, just the blob now. 

The arrow is pointing to the blob of a mistake - I didn't take a pic of my fingerprint LOL

 I wrestled with just throwing the whole thing out and trying again, but I hate to waste products (as evidenced by my overflowing stash of scraps and doo dads) so I went to plan B – after I thought of plan B.  I have quite a collection of plastic gems so I picked through the ones I felt would work with what I’d already done and humbly asked my G&P Design Teammates which “fix” looked best.  That narrowed it down to 2 possible solutions, so I chose to use a blue plastic flower gem, which I glued right onto the Glasstique with a tiny dab of E6000 glue.   And then I put the cardstock paper on the back and that also helped a bit to camouflage the blob.  Whew!  You can still see the blob in certain light, but I think it’s a save.  Mom may not have a new pendant anymore, but she has a fabulous keychain! 

The fabulous Manny holding the keychain

And the keychain - whew!

I already have my eye on what I am going to dive into next – Mom may get a pendent after all!  I hope you enjoyed my little tutorial ~ Fondly, Christi

If you’d like more information about Globecraft & Piccolo’s products, you can go to the main webpage HERE - you’ll even find some tutorial YouTube videos! 

A Bracelet Made of Brads

Hi everyone! I hope the holiday season brought you all joy & some crafting goodies! And if you are in the deep freeze, please be careful, make sure your animals are inside and your elderly neighbors are safe.  Luckily, we haven’t gotten Arctic in my part of Colorado, but today I did wear my winter coat which is literally the first time in 2 years (I have a love/hate relationship with coats, but that’s another story).  Between the amazingly hectic season and the fact I also got myself a touch of a cold (not the flu, thank goodness!) which is partly why I haven’t been blogging – but the good news is I am feeling better and I have LOTS of new projects to share!

I don’t know about you but I have a ton of supplies that I just can’t bring myself to use because they are so pretty (some of you know about my paper addiction already) and this project was born from having this beautiful set of brads from gcd studios in my stash forever – at least 3 years.  I would take them out, play with them, remind myself how pretty they are & then put them away.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a homepage for gcd studios and I fear they may have fallen on hard times, but I am sure you have a set, or two, of lovely brads that you just can’t bring yourself to use.  I was inspired by this post on Joy’s Life that explains how to make a bracelet out of brads!!  This was a perfect solution to hoarding them – I could “use” them but at the same time, I could "keep" them (makes sense to me)!  I was actually looking on the Joy’s Life webpage for die cutting machine information & I feel so lucky I found this post.  Using up my stuff is also one of my resolutions for the new year - mostly because I need the room and I can't justify buying anything new until I clear out some of this old. 

Since this project really depends on how large your brads are and how large you want your bracelet to be I am not going to make a material list – all you need are some brads, some jump rings and a closure. Oh and some pliers or I have this nifty little jump ring opener I got from Fire Mountain Gems – this is an awesome company that sells all kinds of goodies not just jewelry supplies – and they have GREAT sales – I am in no way coordinated enough to orchestrate 2 pairs of pliers so this little tool is a must for me.  I linked up my jump rings first, I made four sets of a few rings a set (and for those of you who don’t work with them often, don’t open them from side to side, instead twist the jump ring – it helps keep the ring from getting distorted & it is SO much easier to put it back together)

 

Then I linked the rings to my brads.  The brads I worked with are almost an inch long, and are all the same size, so I just kinda winged it.  I suppose you could measure your wrist or another bracelet and figure it all out that way, but I don’t have the patience for that.  It really was very easy to make and I am thinking of how cool it is to be able to customize each bracelet.  You also want to be careful opening the brads because I did have a few of the “arms” break off and you need the arms to attach to the jump rings.  You need to open those arms all the way open.

Open them ALL the way

  And here is my new bracelet!   

 

TaDa!

 Now on a few of the brads I was unable to really push the brads arms down and I think what I’ll do is put a dab of E6000 on the arms to make sure they don’t get caught on anything.  I am also debating if I should make it a bit smaller, but I like the fact that I can just slide it on without having to fiddle with the closure – but again, it’s all preference!

I think the arms are too long

I tried to get a good picture if the arms sticking up but nothing would cooperate - I hope you can see what I mean in the above picture.

I hope you enjoyed this little how-to - I love my bracelet! I will be going through my brads & definitely making more of these (early holiday gifts anyone?) 

I would like to enter my bracelet in the following challenges:

Frilly & Funkie - New Years Resolutions (to use up my stash) 

UnstampaBelles Challenge Blog - New Beginnings (I have never made this before, new technique)

Creative Creations Challenge Blog - Anything Goes

Crafty Girls Challenges - Anything Goes

Creative Moments - Anything Goes
Added 1/10/14, Suggested I join by Buttons ~
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