Tuesday, March 29, 2011

easy peasy charms to make...


So, there I am in Hobby Lobby minding my own business, getting a few supplies in the jewelry findings section for the flowers and such and what do I see?  Fabulous silver bezels that require no soldering!  Oh I still love me some soldering, and will show you in just a bit more of what I have been up to, but these are the perfect charm to share without the cost or fear of the molten lava hot soldering iron!


They require few supplies, the most important being your imagination and free spirit!

After said bezel has been located you will then need to purchase some diamond glaze. There are other products out there that are similar, it is a dimensional glaze that will dry like a resin without the mixing part.
The product I used is called Scrabble and Glass Glaze by Sun and Moon craft kits, I found it on etsy and I know you can find diamond glaze on there too. I have used both and they both work great.  Mod Podge also makes a dimensional glue now that I think works the same way, but I could not find my bottle of that and so haven't tried it yet.

note to self... clean out the workroom!




O.k. this is very important, find a sweet picture... and then it must be LASER copied!  You will not be able to copy these on your inkjet printer, for some reason when the ink and glaze are mixed, the ink will turn different colors and run.


You can also take a picture right out of a vintage book like I did here.  These two are Mary had a little lamb and little Jack Horner from a vintage nursery rhyme book.
  I used the pattern on the bezel package to measure how big the picture could be and then just traced that on top of the picture in the book.  seriously easy peasy.


I love how stinkin sweet these are, those little books always catch my heart with a bit of nostalgia.



This one is a snippet of an original photo, you can use those too if you dare to!  I was on a roll and tried not to think of how bummed I might be when I can't go back and use the photo again. But sometimes a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do! 
We don't have a print shop in this one horse town I live in. 

For this one I measured the bezel pattern on to a piece of scrapbook paper and then cut the little girl out of the picture and glued her on.   I then cut out the word precious from an old book and added some detail with markers. 
So this one was a bit of collage fun too!


So you cut out the picture, and then embellish if you like, I added glitter to the one that says precious by putting a very thin bead of glue around the background paper and then sprinking on the glass glitter (also found on etsy).
Then you squeeze enough glaze onto the collage/picture, enough to fill the bezel to the top and leave it alone!
This is always hard for me to do, cuz I'm a bit impatient. shhhhhh.
O.k. before you run out the door to buy you some bezels... here are two important tips... DO NOT shake the glaze bottle!  It will cause bubbles in your glaze and you do not want bubbles on your charm but if you do get bubbles then just take a pin or toothpick and pop them.  Spoken from experience, I promise.

Because I am a thrifty kind of girl, I bought the bezels when they were 50% off, which HL does quite often so they cost maybe 1.00 a piece for the big one and I think 1.50 for the set of two. 

So there you have it, cheap and easy!
Something I never wanted to reveal about myself!  LOL

This was your tip from Theresa for Tuesday...

Thanks for stopping by!

Theresa xoxo

this just in... I'm linking up to Hope Studios for Tutorial Tuesday. and Tip Me Tuesday over at Tip Junkie and the Glitter Party over at Running with Glitter!  I'm headed over now to see what I can learn today!




15 comments:

  1. Oh Theresa! Those are so pretty! I just love the one I found in the little peat pot! I still need to get a chain for it. Thank you again so much! You are just so talented. These are really cute. I like you cause you are a easy peasy kind of gal!

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  2. Theresa ~
    I saw those the other day and thought
    they were so fun!!
    You tutorial is great!!

    xoxo
    Lori

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  3. Very cool idea. I'm going to try it when I can get to HL to get the material. Fun! Thanks for sharing, dawn

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  4. Really cool! I would love to try this some day :)

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  5. I've done this before and agree that it's easy peasy....my main problem is air bubbles using Diamond Glaze. I bought Ice Resin but haven't tried it yet (all that measuring and mixing!) I love the glitter but was afraid to try it. Is there really something called glass glitter?

    Love the images you chose!

    Kathleen

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  6. These are so so cute and I've been wondering how to do this. Love them!!!! Thanks for sharing them,
    xo,
    Debra

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  7. I love all your great ideas! Very creative! I like your blog too! I'm going to try the bezels!
    Thanks for sharing!
    Smiles,
    Eloise

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  8. Great tutorial Theresa! I have made a couple similar to this and they are indeed easy peasy but I have yet to try these products. Thank you so much for the linkage too! :D

    xx
    z

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  9. Those charms are very cute. I know what you mean about using the originals but something else always comes along. Love how they turned out.

    Danielle

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  10. Hi Theresa, I don't know what happened, but I haven't been over here since the beginning of the month. This past week has been the week from hell. :/ You are always up to something fun and creative over here. Love all your bags and the sweet charms. Wine tasting and a girls weekend sounds absolutely fantastic! Good thing I never did anything with the Linked In message -- I don't know anything about those social networking sites ... I don't even do Facebook. Hope all is well and that things are warming up over there. Best wishes, Tammy

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  11. Oo, ooo! I wanna try! Those are so sweet! We don't have a copy place either... I don't think... Hmmm... Or do we? Bet if we do, they're not cheap. Wonder if the Mod Podge stuff would make the inks run? It's worth a try. Maybe try it before putting the pic in the bezel.

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  12. Those are stinkin' cute! Wondering about a laser printer though. Don't have one of those.

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  13. Thanks for sharing! I so wish I had a Hobby Lobby around here. Everyone finds the most fantastic finds there. Oh well, I am thankful I have a Michael's! I am going to be on the lookout for your bezels, thanks for sharing and great job with the instructions. I usually skip the jewelry section to save on my pocketbook, now I will have to think of a new saving strategy! My girls would definitely love some of these. Me too!

    Have a great week. Can't believe that Wednesday is already here. And our snow is almost gone. Spring just might actually come this year! I was getting worried!
    Kate

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  14. Hi Theresa,
    Thanks for the great tutorial. I have some diamond glaze somewhere in my studio (my space sounds like yours) and I need to try this again. I say again because I tried it once with a cute pic of Alex and his girlfriend and the colors ran and I got bubbles....now I know why!
    OK....just added another project to my list!
    I loved my Tip from Theresa on Tuesday (I see a weekly post with this theme). Have a great day.
    Jane

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  15. These are so cute...looks like a fun project!

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Thank you so much for visiting me here at The Old White House, your comments make my day! ~ Theresa xoxo