Ever since I was bitten by the" jewelry making bug," I can't help but see the possibilities when it comes to stamps, especially the new sets coming out in this month's release from GinaK Designs.
I've created two new pieces for tonight's sneak peek. The first is a pendant I made from Asela Hopkins. It's called, "First Christmas." With the holiday season coming up, that gingerbread man was calling to me to bring him to life. He's actually part of a bigger stamp which has him layered a bit on another gingerbread cookie.
I used Hazelnut Sculpey 3 Clay and softened it with my hands. I rolled it out and then stamped into it with the gingerbread stamp with black ink. I used my X-acto knife to trim the gingerbread cookie away from the other one. I used gold clay for the buttons, red clay for the smile and white clay for the eyes. I made sure to add an eye pin in the gingerbread man's head (that sounds so odd to say it that way) so that I could string it from the chain when it was done. I baked the clay "cookie" in the oven according to the directions on the clay package and then let it cool.
After the gingerbread man cooled, I used a black Sakura Glaze pen to add the dots on the white clay eyeballs. I mixed some glitter with liquid lacquer and coated the front and back of him. I love the effect this gives to him. It makes him look like a yummy sugar-coated cookie right out of the oven.
I added some jump rings and beads to a chain (I'm really getting the hang of adding the clasps and turning loops to hang my own beads....it's addictive!) to finish him off.
Speaking of clay and stamping, I also used Nina Brackett's new set, "Vintage Borders," to create another piece of jewelry. Well, technically, it's a barrette....does that qualify as jewelry or an accessory? Either way, it was a lot of fun to create.
As soon as I saw the snowflake border in Nina's new set, I immediately thought of making a barrette. The hardest part was deciding on the color scheme!
Even if you've never worked with clay before, barrettes are one of the easiest things to make. All it takes is getting the clay soft in your hands, then rolling it out (I used a pastry roller from Pampered Chef), inking up a stamp and then stamping onto the clay. You don't even have to double layer the clay if you don't want to. Use an X-acto knife to trim around the image and then bake it off. You can leave it as it is, or you can paint, add glitter, lacquer it and more if you like. A simple hot glue gun and a barrette piece is all it takes to finish your project.
They make great gifts and you can even get your kids in on the creativity if they need to make holiday or birthday gifts....or even something fun for themselves. If you have a group of girls hanging out at your house and you need to keep them busy, give them some clay and stamps to work with and they can each go home with a handmade accessory that they can show off at school and that they're proud of.
For my barrette, I chose to stamp on silver clay and stamped with black ink. I trimmed with the X-acto knife and then baked the clay. When the clay cooled, I rolled out a piece of white clay and then laid the silver piece on top so that I could trim a larger piece of white clay for the silver clay to sit on. I baked the white clay and when it cooled off, I painted it with some light blue acrylic paint. I didn't have blue clay, so painting with acrylic paint is a great way to get the color you want for projects like this. Since the clay is non-porous, I had to give it a second coat after the first completely dry, but on a small piece like this, it doesn't take too long.
After the paint was dry, I used a hot glue gun to adhere the pieces together. I wanted to add some sparkle so I colored over both pieces with a Stardust Pure Glitter pen. Because it's a non-porous surface, I had to allow some time to let the ink from the pen dry. I wish you could see the sparkle better.....this picture shows a lot, but it really does shine so much more than what's shown here.
I know some of you are probably wondering how I kept the glitter ink from going into the stamped areas. Well, it really wasn't a problem. Since it's a ball point pen, it wasn't going to put ink where it couldn't come into contact with a surface. The only area I had to pay close attention to was the large snowflake in the middle. Other than that, it was pretty easy to stay on the silver surface rather than in the stamped indentations.
For even more inspiration, please visit the Illustrators of the stamp sets featured tonight:
Tonight, we have several of our Center Stage Spotlight Designers joining in the previews. Here are their blog links:
Finally, stop by these GinaK Designers' blog for even more projects with tonight's stamp sets:
