Upcycling DIY home decor, woodworking and Crafts
Here are some new paper bead bracelets like I shared with you in this post. If you are new to recycled paper jewelry, you will find a great video link there. These simple woven bracelets are a big hit.
Tune in tomorrow to see how I made a matching paper bead wire wrap ring!
And now, for the $75 Amazon winner from this week’s Thrifty Thursday…
ABBIE! Entry #64, comment #9, you are the winner. I have emailed your voucher. Congrats!
Did you know you can use you Sizzix machine to flatten bottlecaps? Pretty cool, huh. Here, I flattened orange bottlecaps, glued 2 back to back, punched a hole and added ear wire for each double sided earring. This project is very simple and quick. Think of all the possibilities with the wide variety of available bottlecap colors and designs. Orange is my favorite color, so these babies are staying with me, but they would make great gifts or items for your handmade store.
Here is the video that taught me the bottlecap flattening technique using Sizzix.
Today, I thought I would share some more polymer clay + Sizzix creations. For this piece, I baked a very thin (6 on my pasta machine) sheet of polymer clay (white fimo) for 45 min at 275°. I let it cool, then embossed with Sizzix using a Tim Holtz clock embossing folder. Then I colored it with alcohol inks. I cut a piece to fit the bezel, used Crafter’s Pick glue to adhere it into the bezel, and layered watch parts and the word on a transparency in resin (Lisa Pavelka Magic Glos).
Here is another pendant I made using the same technique.
Much more to come with clay and Sizzix.
Have you seen the polymer clay/Sizzix kick going on here at SBLC? Well, I didn’t have a die to cut the exact circle I needed for these bracelet blanks, so I used a paper punch for a circle that fit perfectly.
You can easily make this beautiful custom word bracelet at home. Here is how…
For this project you will need:
Instructions:
That is it!
Today, I thought I would share with you another stamped polymer clay pendant. I recently signed up with Cindy Lietz’s polymer clay library, and was reminded about how fun it is to make bezel pendants with clay. The Polymer Clay Tutor video on stamped bezels inspired me to dive into these word pendants. If you are interested in developing your polymer clay skills, I cannot stress enough how wonderful, and under-priced, Cindy’s membership videos are. I am not being compensated in anyway for saying so, I am just that excited about the tips, tricks and inspiration jam packed into each video I have watched so far. Seriously, she is a fantastic teacher!!
Back to the pendants, I love how simple they are to create, and how each one comes out a little differently.
For this particular piece, I used the bezel from a pendant I scored for cents at a garage sale. I took a hammer to it and rid it of its glass covered image so I was left with just the bezel.
Since the bezel was antiqued silver, I wanted to give the pendant an antique feel. I mixed scrap clay to get the aqua you see in the final piece. With my fingers, I mashed the clay into the bezel, and smoothed it out into its cabochon shape. Once I was happy with the shape, I used metal stamps for the word “JOY”, and a clear cling butterfly stamp for the butterfly. I used a stylus to add a little more texture randomly, then baked for 45 min at 275°.
TIPS:
To finish, I used a mixture of glaze and black acrylic paint; painted the entire piece, then wiped away the glaze/paint mixture, leaving the black in the depressed areas. When this dried, I sealed with 2 coats of sculpey satin glaze. I love this stuff. It is easy to apply, dries to a lovely finish, and is inexpensive.
What do you think? Don’t worry, I am still on my Sizzix kick. Stay tuned!!
My recent acquisition of the Sizzix Big Kick die cut machine has created a cut monster. I had no interest in getting one of these since I have a Cricut, until I began dabbing with metal work in my jewelry. Cricut will not even think about cutting metal. Sizzix has dies that cut right through metal up to 24 mm thick (according to them), with tons of shapes to choose from, and I finally caved.
Since getting it, I have cut through several different materials (the popsicle stick pendant from the Scribble Challenge is a good example), and will be sharing my experiences and results with you as I go along.
This project was born out of my morning run. I spied some random scraps of metal and plastic on the ground. Immediately I pictured running them through my Big Kick, so I snatched them up and brought them home.
You can make this necklace so easily with Sizzix. All I did was die cut the shapes using the Sizzix Flower Layers #2 stack them, secure them with Crafter’s Pick, embellish with pearl in the center, and attach to chain with jump ring. The bottom 2 layers are grungeboard with scrapbook paper glued to the top. I had to hole punched a petal in the metal flower for the jump ring attachment.
Here I made a flower embellishment for a pendant I had already created. I simply cut a flower from the metal and the plastic I found in the road & adhered them with Crafter’s pick right on the front of my pendant. The plastic layer (bottom) is colored with a pink copic marker. What an easy way to completely makeover a pendant in a snap!
I am in love with this machine. I don’t know what took me so long. Wait until you see what you can do with polymer clay and the Sizzix!
A recent beach vacation left me inspired to break out the polymer clay again, after a
long hiatus! It happened when I walked upon a vendor on the pier, with beautiful
handmade polymer clay pendants, unlike any I had seen. I asked her what
she used to color her pieces so vibrantly… acrylic paint! Who knew?
I had actually never done that. It is so obvious. I have used mica
powders, pigment inks, copic markers, chalk… pretty much everything but
good ol’ acrylic paint. The artist recommended
using toothpicks to apply the paint, so I came home and
gave it a shot…
All I did for these was condition white clay into a sheet, stamp on it, cut out
into various shapes with craft knife, then bake. I painted them
after they cured. For some of the lettering I ended up using
PITT artist pens.
These were fun and simple to make. Etching in raw clay makes the artist in me all smiles.
Try it. You will love it!
Make your own customized ring using Plaid Ring Bling bezels and ring forms. These are simple, quick and inexpensive, and the possibilities are endless. Follow along and you will have your own image immortalized in bling form in no time.
Supplies:
Instructions:
I use Lisa Pavelka’s 9 watt curing lamp, which works great for Magic Gloss. My pieces cure in 10 minutes or less.
I am planning to make a ring using the Valentine’s Day sprinkles and resin I showed you a couple of weeks ago…
What have you submerged in resin lately?
To continue with our recent jewelry making obsession, today’s post will cover this gorgeous wire wrapping technique. You do not need wire wrapping experience to be able to pull this off. The example shown here is a rectangular glass tile, but you can apply the lesson to virtually any pendant or stone you want to set.
Supplies:
NOTE: The video from BeadsDirectTV uses half round and square for the technique. I only had round wire, which is what I used, and it worked great. Something to keep in mind if you need to work with what you have. Mine was 22 guage round; Beadalon 22 gauge round wire
Make sure you check out their other awesome jewelry making videos.
No need for a bezel or pendant blank. You can make charms with a simple paper shape and resin. Here, I used my paper punch to get the shape of this orange courage charm, decorated it with word label and rub-ons, and layered Magic Glos resin.
To hang, I just puched a hole in the top and added a jump ring. I placed it on top of a paper tag wrapped in lace, with a burlap strip on top. Add a key fob and some dangly pearl charms, and you have a gorgeous mixed media keychain.
