Third Time's a Charm!

When Saucy announced her Halloween Charm Bracelet Swap I knew I wanted to participate right away! Halloween is one of my FAVORITE holidays, and this is the first time I've ever participated in a swap - what a great way to start!

Essentially, there are about two dozen of us making a set of 12 charms each. We mail them all to Saucy who divvies them up and sends us back a charm bracelet kit complete with twelve charms from the aformentioned bloggers. NEAT-O!

I knew right away that I wanted to do something with Shrinky Dinks to make my charms. This is funny, because I've never used Shrinky Dinks before. But in true Joanne fashion I figured I'd just work it out as I went along and it would be easy as pie!

Well... it WAS easy, in theory....

I just made some SILLY mistakes along the way...

Learning curve?

After two failed batches (trial and error folks, trial and error!) I finally had a finished product I was proud of.

To make my pumpkin charms, I used a pumpkin stamp stamped in black ink on paper, and with the Shrinky Dink plastic over the top I traced my pumpkins in black Sharpie marker.



Once dry, I flipped the plastic over and colored the pumpkins with an orange Sharpie marker.


I then cut them all out, and punched a hole in each with a regular sized hole punch.


After that they went into the oven for some shrinking magic!



I sealed the colored side of the charms with a coat of clear nail polish, which gave the charms a nice sheen, and then added 6mm rings to each.


Then it was time to package them individually for the swappers...



And wrap them up (just for fun - check out the ribbon!) and mail off to Miss Saucy!


I can't wait to get my charms back and assemble my bracelet - don't worry, I'll be sure to share pics!

So reader, what Halloween-y projects are you working on right now? Do share! And expect to see more SPOOKY things on Ready, Set, Craft very soon!