Simplicity turned out to be so much harder than it looked: I saw a lady on Sunday who had a lovely & very simple necklace made up of three gold bars. I wanted to make something similar, but had neither the skill nor the equipment required to cast my own gold bars.

However, I had some gold vinyl on hand (thanks to my mother):

At first I thought I might just roll it or fold it. That failed to give it any weight at all, and that’s a pain in a pendant: it doesn’t hang right if it doesn’t have enough weight to it.

So I cut some pieces of leather cord:

Then, I used some double-sided sticky sheets:

I cut shapes and attached one side to the back of the vinyl, then just rolled it around the cord. I pinched the tops closed & pierced them with an awl so I could put a ring through it:

That was it. I just strung it on some gold chain —

— and at last, I had made something simple.

Love, Em

No, not really Stingray Leather, just Stingray pattern. I’m all for beauty, but not at the expense of an endangered species.

I recently came across the company Endless Leather, and got some of their wonderful and unusual cords.

I don’t really pitch companies unless I really genuinely like their product. I will have you know that I turned down $200 rather than write a blog post about an entirely dodgy looking gambling website. Firstly it was gross, secondly I was pretty sure you might think it odd that I had certainly become interested in such things. Up until now I have always felt I should say no thanks. Anyway, I quickly agreed to their kind offer because I genuinely think the selection they have is unusual and lovely.

They are based in Germany but the power of the internet brings everyone to our door. They also sent me some lovely clasps. I went with this brushed stainless steel one for the Stingray necklace/bracelet:

They sent me several different leather cords to work with and they will pop again over the coming weeks as I work my way through them.

So, I love the Grey Stingray leather print, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to use it as a necklace or a bracelet and decided I would refuse to chose and make both.

For this I just cut half a meter and very easily attached the cord ends with some glue. This is it as a necklace

As you can see the cord is thick enough to hold its shape and it is a nice shape against the neck. Then if I want to wear it as a bracelet, I just wrap it multiple times around my wrist and close the clasp . . .

All very easy peasy, lemon squeasy.

Love,
Em.

I went with the title “Urban Decay Earrings” because I thought it sounded so much better than A) “Yet Another Nail Varnish-Related Craft— honestly Emily, do you have nothing better to do with your life?”, or B) “Cardboard Earrings”.

So this was a total steal. I saw this—

“How to make earrings from cardboard” by Claire Coshan aka 3cardmonte

This one & several others can be found in this post on Hubpages, and they made it sound so easy I thought I would see if it was true.

Basically, you paint a bit of cardboard with one coat, let it dry, coat it again, then put it in the oven till it bubbles.

So I cut some circles out of cardboard. . .

So far, so good. I didn’t see a specific heating instruction in the original post, so I went with 350 degrees, figuring its always easier to turn the heat up than to try putting out a nail varnish fire. However, 350 was perfect, so I’d go with that if you want to try this.

Now, I’m not the most patient woman in the world, so I used the oven to dry the first coat. I didn’t let it dry completely because I figured a bit of drag would just add to the bubbly effect. Then I put a thick layer over the top. I popped them back in and it only took about 2 minutes, so I would stand and watch until you get the bubbly level you want.

Copying this experiment was easy, and whilst my earrings don’t look as good as theirs I’m at least in the same neighborhood. I reckon they may have used a third coat— and that could look awesome. Also, I think they varnished; and clearly, she’s better at taking pictures than me.

It might be interesting to try this process on metal, for a bangle or a brooch, I don’t think it would come out differently than cardboard, but if the metal itself was warm it might make a different pattern.

Anyway I think it’s neat, and this person— whoever they are— is my crafting god of the week.

Love, Em.

I’d always assumed you couldn’t really paint on metal. I recently painted onto a table & did a piss-poor job. However, I was able to save it with the use of varnish: it was really effective at stopping the paint from being super fragile. So, I wondered about using the same process with painting on a metal bangle.

So I painted an aluminum bracelet with some blue paint . . .

It looked nice. But, as I suspected, breathing heavily on it was enough to make the paint come off. It might be interesting at this point to scratch-off patterns or paint another layer of a different color & scratch down to this layer . . . but that’s for another day.

Before I used the varnish, I punched some butterfly shape out of scrap paper:

Then i just Mod-podged them in place. Then it was time for the varnish. . . What I will say is that I used a crappy cheap brush & I felt like it made the varnish come out a little bubbly. Had I applied it more slowly, and with a better quality brush, I think I could have avoided that. It did do the trick, though: the paint is now pretty much on there for good . . .

Love, Em

I like the look of stacking rings, and also wanted to try something less traditional than my usual ‘blob-shaped, thing-on-a-ring’ . . .

I used a bit of copper wire for this because it’s so easy to bend, and I like that quality when trying out a process for the first time. I don’t have a ring mandrel, so I went with a bead tube that looked about the right width:

I wrapped it around a few times. It doesn’t need to be the perfect size for your finger, because you can pull it tighter or looser once you try it out. However, it did come with sharp edges . . .

I figured popping some beads on the end would add a bit of interest, plus take care of the sharp-edges issue.

I like the way it looked when I put it on. I needed to do a big of wiggling to get the perfect fit, but it’s super comfortable to the point I actually forgot I was wearing it. I definitely think it’s worth trying out with different beads & wire sizes. . .

Love, Em.

I like the idea of hand-painting. Unfortunately, I’m not artistic. But, I can basically color-in, using paint.

I got these lovely laser cut wooden circles from Timber Green Woods on Etsy, who make unusual laser-cut shapes from their own sustainable forest. Their prices were reasonable enough that I felt I could afford to experiment.

So I got some of their big circles & put on some masking tape:

Then I felt free to blob away with my paints:

Then I just took the tape off . . .

As you can see, there was a bit of imperfection — but some careful scraping with my fingernail took care of that [gross? possibly; efficient? yes]. Then I Mod-Podged them for durability & added some earring hooks. . .

As I was feeling inspired, I then made a pair of decoupaged ones with some paper leftover from a table project I did a while back. . .

There is something so utterly satisfying about painting things & decoupaging things & making little trinkets. . . Oh, happy sigh.

Love, Em

I’ve seen lots of lovely pictures printed on book paper, but they’ve all been in the form of framed pictures. I wanted to see if I could make a smaller version, for jewelry.

The process itself is not very complicated. I found some images that I liked:

Then I taped a book page to the front & ran it through the printer again. . .

(This allows you to play around with where the image comes on the paper, and with what words appear around it.)

I used a book about the history of Alcoholics Anonymous — something personally important to me — and the image of the butterfly or bird, which for me has meaning in terms of lightness of spirit and/or freedom.

Then I cut out the right shape for my pendant:

. . . Then I just popped it into my gorgeous pendant base made by the wonderful Artbase on Etsy, secured it & added a layer of resin to protect it and give it a nice glossy finish.

Being able to use a book and image that has personal meaning to me has made this piece very special (to me). It’s something I’d love to be able to offer to others, and I’m seriously considering opening a shop that allows you to —

1. Choose the book you want your page from: AA, Childhood Favorite, Poem, Bible, Bhagavad Gita, etc.
2. Choose from a selection of potential images for one that has meaning to you, or provide your own;
3. Choose from a selection of different types & styles of pendant settings.

. . . I’d love to know if you think it’s a good idea, and whether you would visit such a shop or be pleased if someone gave you something like that as a gift. Please leave a comment below if you have an opinion.

Love, Em

I have a long face: horsey long, “why-the-long-face” long. I like a dangling earring, but it renders the whole long-face thing a bit out of control. . . However, a wide earring causes no pain.

I’ve been looking at leather flowers for a while. I feel like I want to add to my plain cuffs (on Etsy) & I’m thinking flowers, although I’m also thinking flat shapes or little metal studs (all thoughts welcome by the way, on that.)

Anyway, I figured I would try a “test of concept” version for earrings. Most of the patterns I’ve seen make the flower flat, but I wanted something with more of a shape. So here is what I did:

These sort of look like 3-leaf clovers, but I just wanted a simple shape made of three hearts. I cut out the littlest one, placed a pearl in the middle, then pulled the petals up & glued them around the sides of the pearl so that only the top showed:

I then glued the slightly bigger shape halfway up the sides of the first, and the third shape halfway up the sides of the second . . . which gave it all more of a 3D effect. Then I just stuck an earring back on the back.

I like the way they look, although I now think they’d likely sit too proud on the cuffs I currently have, so I’ll have to try a flatter effect next time.

Love, Em

I was wandering the aisles of Trader Joe’s the other day and spotted these:

Trader Joe’s Italian Orecchiette Pasta

I don’t know about you, but this is not a shape I’d ever seen before. They seemed like an excellent size and shape for holding little things like beads, or bits of fabric, or any other small thing . . .

I figured paint and/or varnish would give them the bit of extra strength which would probably be wise: I went with blue, because I like blue & because I had paint that color.

I tried little beads and metal studs, etc. . . But nothing was really looking right. I wanted to highlight the depth of the pasta cup & bring a deeper color into the mix. In the end, I used nail varnish to color the insides:

I liked this but decided that A) It needed to be a larger amount, and B) I sort of wanted a pool of it at the bottom, so I painted what I had up & then added several more drops. I then decided to get all-kind-of-crazy & dropped a tiny spot of metallic gold paint into the well at the bottom, stirred it around a bit, then dropped another bit of nail varnish in the middle — groovy, eh? I thought so.

Love, Em.

I’m not a scrapbooker. I say this because I don’t own a scrapbook, have never put together a scrapbook page, and don’t plan to. However, I do find myself dawdling in the scrap-booking aisles of craft stores for a really long time. I love all the little bits & pieces, and often stand there in front of them, mouth slightly agape, wanting to find a reason to put a hundred tiny things into my shopping basket.

I picked up some little discs by Architexture from The Long Beach Depot for Creative ReUse (literally months ago) and decided it was high time to do something with them:

ArchiteXture – Building Embellishment Stone Accents Stickers

I did one with metallic gold paint, one with silver, and one with nail varnish. I also tried highlighting the nail varnish one with a little gold paint . . .

I figured I could make pendants. However, when they were done they seemed more ring-ish (Yes, I know that’s not a word):

On the down side, these are possibly not going to last forever — they are made of compressed paper, after all. Having said that: as they cost about $2 to make, I can probably live with it.

Love, Em.