Changing Colors

Ta-dah! Here is the bracelet I made using a few of my own charms, plus charms I received from my last few swaps. The themes were "red/pink" and "all hearts," so together I was able to make this amazing bracelet, just in time for Valentine's Day!

I was also able to get the book below from the library just in time for the weekend. It has some nice ideas for using fabric, ribbon, and cording to make beads and charms. You can see it on Amazon by clicking here.It inspired me to make some more progress on the green/yellow swap I signed up for. To make the leaf charms below, I cut Timtex interfacing into little leaf shapes and wrapped them in a sparkly green fabric. I fused another leaf-shaped piece of fabric on top to cover the raw edges. After fusing everything, I stitched a zig-zag around the edge and free-motioned some veins using a metallic gold thread. Then I added an eyelet and a flower button dangle.
I have 10 of this style and six others. Cute, huh? I like them! I kind of did an assembly line, so they came together pretty quickly. Now I'm finishing up my final 7 charms using some rolled fabric beads. I'll share those when they're finished, and then I'll put all my charm-making tools and materials away for a while and get moving on my large fiber art piece. Can't wait to get started on that!

More Swap Charms

I joined two more swaps with the yahoo artcharms group and you can see some of my creations above and below for the quick winter swap. I got the idea for the snowmen from some earrings that belong to my daughter. They were made with pearls and silver metal scarves and hats. Since I didn't have those two elements, I made them out of polymer clay. They came out pretty cute! The ones below are also polymer clay, stamped with a snowflake stamp dusted with "perfect pearls" powder.
Now I only have one more set of charms to make: I joined a green/yellow swap with gold colored findings. Below are some of the designs I've come up with. I have a lot of green beads so I'll probably just make a bunch dangles with them. When this swap is over, I'll have to take a break from charm making for a while. I have a big fiber art piece due in early April and I have some other important projects I want to focus on. (Hope I can stay focused!)

Valentine's Day Charm Bracelets

Here is one of the charm bracelets I've been working on. I've completed 5 altogether and I'm listing some on Etsy while I wait to hear back from a local gift shop. I'm really happy with the mix of red, pink, and white, as well as the variety of materials. These bracelet have more charms than my previous ones did. They are fuller looking, but not so full that you can't see the individual charms. They also feature a silver-plated chain and heart-shaped toggle clasp. Know anyone looking for a unique and memorable Valentine's Day gift? Send 'em my way!

Jewelry Factory at Full Speed!

This week, I really tried to get in as much time as possible creating charms for more Valentine's Day bracelets. I made another attempt at making a little book. This one is only 3/4" square, so it's pretty small! I added a little cotton loop for a jumpring and cotton strings to tie it closed as you see here.

I wanted to put some Valentine's Day message on the pages inside, but I didn't want to do each page individually. In an effort to streamline and speed up production, I made a word document that contained the phrase "I love you" in 18 languages in a variety of fonts, spaced just right so I could print a page and cut it up into little 1 1/2" x 3/4" pages. I printed the words on pink paper and stamped little hearts and things on the back so when the pages were folded, some would have words and some would have hearts. This is what the book looks like open:
As cute as it is, I still don't think it's small enough to blend in with the other charms I've been making. Maybe I'll put it on a necklace.

While I was frantically trying to come up with other ideas for charms, I received my first swap charms from the yahoo group! Here they are, below. They gave me just the right inspiration and push I needed! Aren't they great? I especially like the two wire hearts in the center, one with the beads threaded on and the other with the coil.
On Friday I managed to squeeze in a trip to JoAnn's Fabrics in between the orthodontist and the grocery store! I picked up some colored wire in both red and pink, some metal charms that say "love much" on one side and "laugh often" on the other, some larger, thinner jump rings, some filagree bead caps, some colorful plastic dice beads, and a few large red wire-wrapped beads. From those materials, I was able to make all these new styles of charms!
Now I have piles of pink charms,
red charms,
and mixed red and pink. I placed an order with Artbeads.com for silver-plated chain and some heart-shaped toggle clasps. As soon as it arrives, I'll be able to put together at least 3 more bracelets. Just in time for February!
I also worked up that glass charm into a cluster necklace hung from a ribbon. While I'm waiting for the chain, I can keep working on these!

Ta-Dah!

Ta-dah! Here is one of the charm bracelets I've been working on! I really love the way it came out. I have a lot of extra charms and I'm hoping to make more like this, some with red and pink mixed together and some primarily red. I'm hoping to work up necklace or two and possibly some earrings as well, so I can take some over to that gift shop in town by the end of the month. Hope I can pull this off! If not, I'll have plenty of inventory for my Etsy shop!

A Busy, Snowy Day

We got our first significant snowfall of the year today. I believe by this time last year, we had already used up four snow days on the school calendar. But it's Saturday today so we still haven't used one! It was really nice to be home doing indoor things - no errands and running around, just fun and family time.

The "red-pink-white" charms I made need to be mailed on Monday, so I got busy finishing them up and getting them ready. I had to make 25 charms, so I used 15 of the heart charms I made for the "all hearts" swap and then made 10 of the variety shown below.

I was happy to find these inexpensive pink shell rings on sale at Michael's last week. I wasn't sure how I would use them, but I had so much fun coming up with different ways of combining them with beads and wire. Below is how I packaged the charms. On the other side of the card is my contact information, and on this side I stamped the little bunny and tied the charm on with bakery string (Don't you love bakery string? It's so festive looking. Remember the days when there was always a ball of striped bakery string in the messy drawer of the kitchen, just in case you needed to tie something up or wanted to play "cats cradle?"). The color scheme just seemed to fit!

Below is another charm I made up earlier this week. On one of my last trips to JoAnn's Fabrics, I bought out their entire stock of these cute glass bottles. I used some for my "snowstorm in a bottle" charms on my winter-themed bracelet, but I turned these into Valentine charms. I photocopied and drastically reduced a portion of a song by Andrew Lloyd Weber called "Love Changes Everything" and added that bar of music to the bottle along with some pink beads and red confetti hearts. Isn't it cute?
I also played with another method of making charms. I sandwiched a little collage between two pieces of memory glass one inch square. Rather than buying the premade metal holders for these or using solder to keep them together, I used polymer clay (I really don't feel like investing the time and money in learning to solder at this point in my life - maybe when I retire). I inserted a curved piece of wire to hold a jump ring before I baked it, and colored it with a silver metallic pen after I baked it. It's a little heavy and large for a charm on a bracelet, but it might make a cute necklace. I have a bunch more old stamps ready to turn into charms like this.
I made a few other charms out of polymer clay. I've seen people make miniature food out of clay and thought some sweets might be appropriate on a Valentine's Day charm bracelet. Here is a little mini cupcake...
... and here are some strawberry cream filled chocolate candies. Don't they look good enough to eat? Mmm!
Speaking of chocolate, next month I'll be making a variety of truffles with the adult Creative Playgroup. I needed to test out this easy recipe, and I decided a snowy day would be the perfect time to try it! These truffles are made with 3 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Melt them in a glass bowl in the microwave and then stir in one can of sweetened condensed milk and a teaspoon of your choice of extract. You can then spread the mixture into a pan, cool, and cut into squares for fudge, or cool slightly, then roll in various toppings, as I did. I used almond extract and rolled them in coconut, chopped almonds, cocoa powder, powdered sugar, and white sprinkles. I think I like the coconut best. The recipe makes about 6 dozen. Wow! That should satisfy my need for chocolate for a long while! Hopefully, the girls will eat a bunch too - need to get back to healthy eating again!
Next post I'll show you photos of my first Valentine's Day charm bracelet. All I'll say is "I'm in love!"

Making the Best of a Gloomy Day

This morning we woke to a bit of slush all around. I did have to shovel (can't get the car up that steep driveway even with the tiniest bit of slush) but at least the schools had a delayed opening. With the extra morning time, I had the chance to read the blog of another member of the yahoo artcharms group, Kia Dallons (see it by clicking here). She posted about these tiny pop-up books she made as charms. They're amazing! This came on the heels of a tutorial another art-charmer mentioned, which demonstrated an easier method for making a little charm-sized book (click here to see it). All day while I was at work, my mind kept ruminating on the possiblities for little book charms, pop-up or otherwise!

After work I stopped for a few groceries, and when I got back I was damp and chilled. I made myself a nice hot cup of chocolate, and then I made an interesting discovery: Although panettone is delicious by itself, it tastes even better when smeared with a little Nutella! Actually, that's not so surprising - I thing everything tastes better smeared with Nutella!
While enjoying my indulgent snack, I had the chance to browse through the latest edition of Quilting Arts magazine, which was just delivered today. Lots of fun surface design techniques to try!
After dinner, I finally got some time to play with the book ideas. First I tried the pop-up. I visited Robert Sabuda's website, as Kia suggested in her blog post, and found a simple valentine pattern. I copied it and shrank it down to fit in a book about one square inch. I put a pretty floral cover on it that I cut from a recycled greeting card.
There you can see the little hearts. Cute, but not amazing like Kia's castle and waterfall books! I'll have to keep trying.
My worktable looks like a hurricane went through and scattered all kinds of red and pink beads, papers, stamps, ink pads, and pieces of clay! Once again, I'm trying to do a variety of charms at once, rather than moving from material to material once a certain type of charm is finished. Because Valentine's Day will be here before we know it, I'm trying to complete as many charms as possible, and also trying to make them look as professional and polished as possible. Maybe I bit off a little more than I could chew with such a tight deadline, but I'd rather be doing this than sitting in front of the TV (not much of value on it, if you ask me.)

Oh - and I have a little good news: A new art gallery is opening here in town called the Look Art Gallery, and I received an email asking for artwork for their inaugural exhibit and sale called "Art from the Heart." Every piece they are taking must be less than 12" per side and they will each sell for $75 as a Valentine's Day special. I looked through my portfolio of completed pieces and finally found something appropriate - it's 12" high but 13 1/2" wide! I thought about creating something entirely new (by Friday!) but with all my energy going into these Valentine charms, I didn't see how I could do it. I didn't want to miss out on another opportunity to exhibit, so I finally e-mailed the owner/artist and she said to bring it on over anyway! So I'm able to focus on the quantity and quality of the charms and still have a chance to sell a piece of art - the perfect resolution! The piece I'm going to put in is one that I like and feel confident showing. It's called "Bleeding Hearts" (appropriate for Valentine's Day maybe?) and I made it almost two years ago. I forgot to put in the photo but you can see it in the original post by clicking here.