Monday, September 21, 2009

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!

6 comments:

Katie said...

How cute! Such a simple project, too. I love it!

LollyChops said...

These are so fabulous! I think I might be in love. I wish I could have gotten in on this! I have loads of shrinky sheets just begging to be used! HUGS for sharing. Cannot wait to see what you have coming up next!

UK lass in US said...

They look great.

I've been shamelessly pushing my kids in the direction of costume ideas that will require very little sewing (well, as long as I can dye something ok, they won't). In my defense, their first idea for Halloween was wanting to be Star Wars Stormtroopers...

Saucy said...

So cute! So cute! So cute! Shrinky Dinks are the bomb, aren't they?

My house is a mess 'o charms. You should see it. Can you say, "carried away"?

Meg@MegaCrafty said...

So cute- great job!!!

Joanne said...

Thanks ladies! Now all I want to do is play with Shrinky Dinks! : )