Friday, August 1, 2008

Gift Swap for Convention

I signed up for a swap at convention where you hand stamp a gift. For my swap I made these necklaces with earrings to match.

The hand stamped part of this was done on matte shrink plastic. I stamped the large flower from One of a Kind and the flowers from Together Forever. On the earring card I wheeled Forever Flowers. After stamping I colored the reverse side of the shrink plastic with my Prisma Color pencils. Poppy Red, True Blue and Apple Green. I punched the large flowers with my scallop circle punch and the rectangles were pre-cut sized with the corners rounded. Then I baked them in the oven.
For those who don't know. I was making jewelry long before I was stamping. I have a problem with collecting all the supplies of something when I get into it. Alas, I have almost as many beads as I do stamps.

Here's the summary of the jewelry making bit. I strung the beads onto two 32" lengths of waxed linen one at a time. The nice thing about waxed linen is that it is very stiff so you don't need a needle. Basically once the first bead is threaded on you tie a knot approximately 1"below the previous knot. With the stamped beads there is a top hole and a bottom hole and I strung through the front and from the back to hold the bead in place. The top has tube crimps and the toggles are held on with jump rings.

For the earrings I just used my jewelry pliers to bend the bottom loop of the french hooks to face out so the beads wouldn't turn sideways.

2 comments:

michelle said...

it was so good to see ya the other day.

i LOVE the earrings and necklace, that would be an awesome class{hint, hint}. you are so creative!!

glad you had fun at the convention. can't wait to learn some new techniques.

cya friday.

Michelle said...

That is awesome! I do jewelry on the side - used to sell it too! I know what you mean about stocking up on everything! You might "need" it! LOL! Great job!!