Refreshed!

Aaaaah, you know that feeling you get when you clean out and reorganize your house/craft area/purse (or in my case, backpack)?  Yeah, I'm working on that.  And, as I go along, I've gotten more and more ideas.  I'm slowly but steadily working on cleaning out the junk and keeping the good stuff.  Every crafter knows that really their craftiness is just an excuse for being a hoarder.  "OH I could use this for....something...." and you end up keeping it.  Right now, I'm thinking of the random jars and coffee cans and everything that I've kept for NO reason..haha.  Except I found a reason for my coffee can, but, that's going to be another project post sooooon.

Anyway, so I have been on my "make x amount of projects a week" thing still, and last night, while shamelessly listening to OneDirection, I made a cute little Perler Bead necklace I wanted to share!  The purple wasn't as vibrant as I wanted it to be, so I might remake this in pink and red or white or something.  Who knows!

Found Stuff!

Looking through my old photos, here's some other fun stuff I made!!

Here's a fairy in a jar with some cute butterflies!  

Polymer clay steam punk style earrings.  Very loosely Steampunk

Hylian Crest Hat for Jarod

Soon...

Today is the day I finish quite possibly the most awesome pendants I think I've ever done.  I've combined all the techniques I've learned, and added some new ones, and have seemed to have great success!  They are so awesome looking.  I used a new technique I was playing with for awhile and then found a couple of videos on how to do it (Of course, cannot find the link for it now, but, if I do, I'll be sure and link it up.) And things I just kinda made up as I went along. 

My original idea was to attempt an image transfer but, the ink I have in my printer, despite it being a special photo printer, was a cheap knock off brand, so it doesn't do what it's supposed to with the photos.  I normally just use it for general printing for school or invoicing or whatever for the shop, so I didn't think to spend the extra on potential crafty awesome things. 

I usually go in with a big plan that I sometimes don't completely deliver on, which, is disappointing sometimes, so this time, I just printed up some clip art for ideas, and went with it.  I used a plain off white polymer clay base, and used layers of paint, sand paper, paper, and my favorite favorite thing ever, Mod Podge Dimensional Magic, and the results are phenomenal.  I'm so happy :)  As a note, these pendants are all in the midst of curing when I took these photos, so they're still a work in progress.  All that's left to do on them now is a final coat of glaze to cure, and then making it into the necklace.  But, photos anyway :D

These two got a thin coat of metallic paint that gives them a very lovely sheen.

My Sharpie skills were failing here but, this one got the best coloring, it looks kind of like painted wood.

My favorite one! The butterfly came out perfect, and it looks like it's painted wood.

This is just an idea I'm working on... I was thinking it kind of looks like a sandy beach.  These are seashells and white sand from Virginia Beach!  I have a few more seashell designs, but they were not ready for photographing. 

Shrinky....Duds?

Adventures with shrink plastic!!  As I spend countless hours roaming through Pintrest, I came across a whole bunch of shrink plastic jewelry and ideas that were super simple looking, and some ideas to use any type of #6 plastic, like Solo cups, food containers, etc.  SO of course, I'm off to the dollar store and pick up a pack of clear #6 plastic cups for $2.  Not a bad deal, right?  After several duds, I've determined that I think this plastic is too thin, and I should have spent the extra 50 cents to get the red, durable Solo brand that have turned up better results.   Oh well, but, here's what I salvaged from the near 10 attempts I made the past few days....