Bottle cap beads!

I bought these beads from Goody Beads. They're recycled bottle caps hammered into shape and soldered together. I'd love to learn how to do this! I made a bottle opener for my dad and a pendant for me:



I made two more Christmas charms:

It's been a while...

I just lost the creative bug this year, I guess. But I'm starting to make jewelry again. Here is a bottle cap pendant with a Christmas theme:



These are easy, so I'll make a few more.

Barbie shoes!

I made a cute necklace for my mom with a bunch of shoes. She loves it! I'll have to make another one for me, but I'll add small Barbie purses to mine.



Easy project.

It's not quite like the project from Bead Unique- that was a bracelet, and Mom doesn't really like bracelets that much. I also didn't add any beads. I thought the shoes were enough.

New necklace!

I made this beaded necklace with a pendant I bought at the Glassworks in Louisville.



The pendant was lampworked by Mark Payton, one of the resident artists. I watched him "flamework" a different piece in his studio while I was there. It was so cool to watch!

http://www.louisvilleglassworks.com/flaming.html

New project!

This is one of Tim Holtz's "pocketwatch" pendants:



I filled it with his scrapbook paper as a background, then found some other charms to add to the "time flies" theme. Finally, I added a TH word charm outside the watch.

More TH goodies, not sure yet what I'll do with them!

In a Barbie World...

I saw a great project in Bead Unique magazine this month- a bracelet made with Barbie shoes! I bought a stash of shoes and purses:



I'll probably mix the plastic with some metal shoe and purse charms. I have enough of both types to make two necklaces and two bracelets, and maybe a pair of earrings, too!

I also just bought a bunch of Tim Holtz Idea-ology things- a pocketwatch, little bottles, and his great scrapbooking papers and "salavage" stickers. I'm going to have fun coming up with jewelry ideas for those!

Simple and sweet.

Michaels has a new exclusive Bead Landing line- C'est la Vie. Obviously, French inspired! I threw together this little set in less than half an hour: Fleur-de-lis earrings and necklace.



I used a velvet cord, also from Bead Landing. It looks elegant and more expensive than it actually was. ;) Perfect for a cocktail party I'm going to in May! Stage two of my Doctor Who bracelet:



I may omit some of the less-than-perfect charms, and add beads in their place.

More Doctor Who fun!

I made a bunch of Scrabble tile charms using images from Series 5: I'll use the best looking of these to make a bracelet! They've already been drilled.

The Doctor is in.

I made these last night: They will be earrings. I found television-shaped bezels, and since my favorite current show is Doctor Who, I found some images and resized them to fit. I'll have to do a Star Trek set, too. Geek jewelry!

More French poster art...

Yet another memory glass pendant, two sides, both from old French posters.

Side one:



Side two:



A generous friend of mine gave me some old game pieces, including dominos and Scrabble letters. I'm going to be making a lot of charms in the next few months!

More resin madness!

Three charms, two are double-sided.

Queen Bee!





Paris goodies!





One side on this one- and the colors ran a bit. :( No idea why. The seal might not have been completely dry before I added the resin.



Same technique as always, but I'm experimenting with different types of resin (no two-part mixes yet). Mostly I've been using Mod Podge Dimensional Magic, but I tried JudiKins Diamond Glaze. Diamond dries harder and faster, but Mod Podge is easier to pour. Takes 24 hours to harden, though. Aileen's Paper Glaze works well, too. I've had fewer bubbles with Aileen's.

I'm not going to attempt a two-part resin like ICE until my technique is very, very good.

Laughing out loud!

Just made this last night:



I love working with Scrabble letters! I just got this batch in:



I've already used up all the F's, G's, M's, and L's. I need more. :(

For Mets fans...

The season hasn't even started yet, but based on past seasons, this is good advice to follow:



I made the memory frame pendant with an image I found on metsblog.com. Too bad there isn't a "Now Panic and Freak Out" to put on the other side. Knowing the Mets, it might be needed...

I plan to add baseball and bat charms later.

Lots of stuff today!

Found even more clip art to use for jewelry from http://www.etsy.com/shop/UniqueBanners?ga_ref=auto&ga_search_query=1+inch+collage+sheets+inchies&ga_search_type=handmade&ga_facet=handmade .
I made three pendants:







Also put together some Scrabble letters in internet slang:



I wanted to make more, but I broke a few letters while drilling. I'd like to do "LOL", "BFF", and others.

More "charming" Paris pieces!

I may re-do these because of the bubbles- but this is what I have so far:





I probably need to use a better resin.

Scrabble tiles!

I put these together last night.





The images are from http://cloud9kreations.com/shop/. I re-sized and stretched them a bit so they would fit the tiles, then glued them to a tile and covered them with ModPodge Dimensional Magic.

These are so easy to do!

More charming stuff!

Another addition to my New York/London/Paris necklace plan: New York!



I found a little Brooklyn Bridge charm, and the picture came from an old American Airlines travel poster. Now I need to figure out how I'm going to assemble the final piece!

Girls in a toy car:



Another fabulous old photo found at http://www.graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ . I sponged a bit of copper ink on the photo for some color, then glued a little old fashioned car charm to the frame. I may cut off the top ring and make this into a pin instead of putting it on a chain.

Mucha Bling!

My soldering still isn't perfect, so I decorated the front with rhinestones.



My main problem is that I wasn't cleaning the tip properly. I bought a tip cleaner/tinner and used it for the first time tonight. It's awful stuff, but it works. The solder flowed better, but my tape is still a bit bumpy. It just won't stick!

I made another memory glass pendant- a naughty flapper (image from the Graphics Fairy):



This just needed a little extra sparkle, so I put a few rhinestones on the corners, and added a copper crown.

Memory glass work...

More charms for my travel-themed necklace- London and Paris.




I may take apart one of them and re-do it as New York, so my final necklace would be NY-London-Paris. :)

Navy girl pendant- based on a classic WWI recruitment poster.



I glued small charms to each frame. The Navy poster image came from LunaGirl Images.

These came in the mail yesterday- mini shadow boxes. I can put any kind of tiny item in them! I'll probably cover the insides with clip art, then choose a theme.



I suck at soldering. I tried to do the Mucha pendant again, and failed miserably. I just can't get the solder to flow well. :( I hope I figure out what I'm doing wrong- I don't want to waste any more solder or tape!

More charm work.

One success, one work in progress, one mess. :(

The success- a memory frame charm. I glued the little charms (from B'Sue Boutiques) to the frame. It's 1x1 inch, much smaller than the picture!



This will be part of a bigger project- a travel themed necklace. The next memory frame will be London themed.

Work in progress- three little charms with vintage photos from LunaGirl images:



They need more resin. I have three more blanks to work with! These are so tiny- 8mm.

More from LunaGirl, and this was the mess. :( A Mucha poster with a rhinestone border. This was supposed to be under glass and soldered, but on my first try, the glass cracked, and on the second, the solder just didn't flow and made a HUGE mess. So I pulled the glass off and will try again...



I love the images from LunaGirl!

New stuff to post, at last!

Getting back into charms, plus I made pendants with resin.

"Keep Calm", a double-sided bezel:



London themed charms surround the pendant:



A Paris pendant. I'm not really happy with it- I think it's a bit cloudy.



Also, I made a quickie necklace with a pendant from Vintage Groove: