DIY Glitter Photo Pendant

This little pendant is kind of like a locket, except it doesn't lock, and it's pretty quick to make except for curing time. Mine has photos of my kids in it.

You will need:

• Wood shapes- I used hearts!
• drill with a 1/8 inch drill bit and something safe to drill on
• 220 grit sandpaper
• optional- painter's tape
• paint
• fine glitter
• decoupage medium
• foam brushes
• Photos or pictures for the inside
• 1/8 inch hole punch
• scissors
• ribbon
• large jump ring- either handmade or commercial

Quick notes- I used my Fiskars Craft Drill, it's hand powered, quiet and easy to use. The glitter is Martha Stewart -Garnet, and the jump ring is made from 18 gauge copper using a knitting needle as a mandrel. The hearts were from a mixed bag of heart wood shapes.

You'll need two shapes the same size and shape, so if you have a bag of shapes, sort through and pick out 2 the size you want to make the pendant.

Then it's time to drill them. I used painter's tape to wrap them securely together. That let me drill both pieces at once to have the holes in the right place, plus wrapping them in tape helped keep the soft wood from splitting. You can also drill one, then use it to mark the other one to drill it.

Now take them apart if you've taped them together, and sand both hearts smooth. Then you'll paint them. They need to be painted and glittered in mirror image to each other so there is a front and back. Let the paint dry, then put on a coat of decoupage medium and GLITTER!

After the decoupage glue has dried, add another coat to seal the glitter so the finished pendant isn't leaving glitter everywhere. Let dry.

Then it's time to start with the photos. Measure your hearts to resize photos to fit, or draw little pictures on paper or cut images from a magazine. It's your choice, it's your necklace. Trace the hearts on the image, paying attention to where the holes will be so you don't accidentally wind up with a hole in the wrong place. Cut out just inside the outlines using the scissors. Place the heart over the image, and mark where the hole is to punch it. Repeat for the other image remembering they need to be mirror images for hole placement.

Decoupage the unglittered sides of the heart with the images.  Make sure the holes are clear using some sort of needle type tool.

Let the hearts cure,  Over night should do it.

Then you just need to connect them with the jump ring and hang from a ribbon!

You aren't limited to just hearts of course, stars will work. If you wanted, you could make a mini book by cutting pages to fit, punching holes and using a bigger jump ring. 

The cups in the photos are made by Silverbear Sundries. 

Product Review- Xyron Mega Runner

Almost all of my boxes and printables are designed with half inch tabs to glue specifically for people who prefer using double sided tape or runners to assemble instead of glue. The advantage to that method over glue is that there is no drying time, no need to clamp, no wrinkling because of wet glue and everything goes together a lot faster.

Xyron recently sent me some of their adhesive runners to try out. This is about the Xyron Mega Runner.

The Xyron Mega Runner uses cartridges with 100 feet of 1/2 inch wide adhesive. The cartridges fit into the big runner in one direction only so you can't mess up putting in the cartridge. The runner is comfortable to hold and pull and comes away clean when you pull it off the project you're working on. The adhesive is in a dot pattern on a plastic tape strip. It sticks to your project and comes off the tape easily. 

I used this runner to put together the Día de los Muertos Sugar Skull Boxes and was impressed by how easily it worked. It pulled easily and the tape didn't come loose or break. So I've been using it on a lot of projects since then and so has the Turnip Girl. After using at least 20 feet of the cartridge, the tape did jam a couple of times, popping open the Mega Runner and pulling out the cartridge to wind the used tape was easy.

Then I thought "Well, what's the best way to show the dot pattern?" because it's only going to be a little shiny if I pull it on paper and take a photo. I decided to see how it worked with glitter for contrast! It worked very well and makes a nice way to quickly embellish a card edge. (I'm planning to add a lot more skulls to this card later)

So now that you have an idea of the scale, here's a close up to see the dot pattern of the adhesive.

It's a nice bond. I do recommend with all runners to burnish down what you're working on for a truly permanent bond. If you tack it lightly with very little pressure, you can usually move it if necessary.

It has a very thin profile and the adhesive is clear and shiny so it will work with translucent papers, and it doesn't add bulk to anything you're gluing. If you're going to be making a lot of boxes or doing a lot of pages or other paper crafting, it's incredibly convenient.

You can get the Mega Runner, or the smaller tape runner (which I'll be reviewing later) directly from Xyron

You can get more information about my review policy here.

Comic book rings- tutorial

These are so much fun and so fast. A great project to do with kids or tweens.

You'll need:

Adjustable ring blanks- the ones I used are the white adjustable ring blanks from Rings and Things

Small wood shapes- I have a bag of "woodsies" from the craft store

3/4 inch circle punch 

paint or markers

glitter

Mod Podge

E-6000 glue

a comic book or fan magazine- something with pictures!

I buy extra copies of cheap promo comics and comics from the 25¢ bin at my local comic book shop specifically for crafting. Before you cut it up, make sure it's not valuable! 

I chose circles for my rings, and the bag of wooden shapes has a bunch of these smaller circle shapes.

Base paint the wood shape or color it with markers. 

Mix up some Mod Podge and glitter then paint the shape with that. I used a cheap foam brush.

Then you should let it dry completely. I didn't which is why there are specks of glitter on my images.

Find an image that will fit well in the 3/4 punch. The best way to do this is to take a piece of scrap paper and punch out a circle on it. Then use the punched paper with the circle cut out to frame images until you find one you like. Because of the diminutive size of the circle, you could do something that looks out-sized very easily. Like one eye of a cover model. Ads for dvds, cds and such often have very small pictures that work well in the punch. The images above were from an ad for Buffy coffee cups!

Punch out your image, then put Mod Podge on the wood shape and put the picture down on it. Cover the whole thing in Mod Podge, let dry.

After it's dry, glue the wood shape to the ring blank with a dollop of E-6000.

If you're working with younger children, you may want to use a chunkier glitter and you'll want to be the one who uses the E-6000. But they can do the rest and will enjoy picking just the right image for their rings. If you've managed to get on Disney's mailing list, you probably get regular snail mail ads for DVDs that have perfect sized images for Disney themed rings.

The rings are very adjustable, and the glue on pad is slightly textured to grab the glue better. 

Butterfly Outlines

In 3 sizes, smaller, small and big. The two small ones are for making cards, embroidery, appliqué,  that sort of thing. The big ones are meant to be printed one half on regular sheet of paper, then you cut it out and use it for a template on 12x12 scrapbook paper to make butterfly decorations for a wall. You can either trace one side and then flip it over to trace the other side (no fold lines) or fold the paper in half and trace the outline on one half. The center body is the where the fold should be or where it should line up if you mirror it.
My example is origami paper and glitter on black cardstock. I just rushed it so the gluing isn't super neat, but hopefully you get lots of ideas to do much better things with it. I used Martha Stewart glitter which I love for the shades in comes in.
Click on the images for the full sized versions.
Not all butterflies. There is also a luna moth because I have a friend who much prefers moths!

Sparkly Recycled Cardboard Ornaments

 We keep cardboard food packaging to use for crafting. It becomes the frame work for duct tape purses, new boxes, covers and backs for mini-notebooks and all sorts of other things. I like these a lot too. Glittered ornaments for our tree.

What you'll need is templates or craft punches a small hole punch, all but the heart I used a 1/8 inch punch on, glitter, we used Martha Stewart's because I have lots of it I bought on sale after the holidays last year,glue and some sort of spray sealer.

If you use my templates, print them out on paper, then cut them out. Trace the shapes on to your cardboard and cut out the cardboard. A craft knife is helpful for the peace symbol, but if you work carefully you can use scissors.

Punch a small hole near the top, and cover the shapes with glue and sprinkle glitter on them. Let dry. Seal. If you want them to come out very nice and neat looking, you could spray paint the shapes before spreading the glue and glitter on them, but I like the way these look without it. We put the glitter on the plain brown side.

You can actually decorate these all sorts of ways. I offered my daughter buttons and sequins as well. She did the green ones.She also wanted me to point out the shapes make nice negative stencils to decorate clothing with. Click on the templates for the full sized version.

 

Candy Corn Striped Cupcake Box

Using the stripe from the candy corn treat box and the cupcake box template, I made this cupcake box for you.

 

Click on the images for the full size 100 ppi versions.

About glitter-

Not really related to the boxes, but does anyone else have glitter issues with their husbands? Glitter is a craft transmitted disease you know. No matter how careful you are, some wanders. I'm not always careful. Our home has an ambient glitter level, and all of us have a sparkle of glitter somewhere on ourselves. Last year I told my 18 yo son he had glitter on his face. He shrugged, indicated the living room with a wave of the hand. Like "I'm supposed to avoid sparkling in this house?". Some of my husband's co-workers assume he's going to a local strip club regularly since he's always got a sparkle somewhere on him. The stuff just endures. We vacuum, I try to get it all up. But there it is. The sparkle of glitter. We are the Glitterati. Marked by E's and my love for the stuff. We use it on fairy wands, I stencil with it, I use it in resin. I'm half magpie and can't resist the sparkle. So when Andrea of The Paper Purse suggested using glitter on  the paper snails I passed on the suggestion to my poor suffering but very sparkly husband. He says I don't need enabling in my glitter addiction, but did ask if we of the Glitterati had a secret handshake. I said "Yes. We wave hands with glitter dust on them so the glitter shimmers, and some always comes off to mark the spot we met in."