DIY Clay Fruit Stick Earrings

Clay sticks! Such an awesome thing you can find on the internet these days!

They are quite cheap, and come in oh-so-many awesome shapes and colors.

FRUUUIIIITTTT.

I think they are originally meant for slicing thin and gluing to your nails.  But if I did that I'd probably chew them right off within an hour.  I can barely handle nail polish, much less anything remotely 3D.

Luckily, you can also use them for other things, like decoden or jewelry.  Or things like watermelon earrings! So summery!

Chop off two thin slices.

And use some heavy duty glue (E6000 in this case) to glue to some earring posts.

Bam, watermelon earrings! Cheaper than Claire's, probably. HAHA.

There was a conversation with the ladies at church the other day about where all the seeded watermelon went. It's true - I haven't seen a non-seedless watermelon in a long time! Not that I'm complaining, seeds are a pain.  But in a few decades will the traditional look of watermelon change?  That'd be weird.

Anyway, happy 4th of July! I think I'll wear these while I hang out and eat BBQ and seedless watermelon in the land of the free today :P

For the Hoard: Organizing Jewelry Making Supplies

Mmm. You know that feeling when you have a specific project in mind, and you rush to grab your needle nose pliers...only to see that they've suddenly run off to Narnia along with your library card and a couple of mismatched socks?

Yeah, my craft supplies, once neatly kept in their little cubbies, have since expanded into random boxes and bags throughout the house.  To start, here's the round-up of the jewelry making supplies (or what I estimate to be about 85% of it):

Mugghhhh.  Anyway. I'm going to slowly attempt to re-organize my hoard, taking a general inventory of my stash in the process.  Going through this first try was interesting - "Oh! when did I get this charm/tool/insert random-object-here ?!" Dangerous. Hoarding runs in my family, guys. I gotta keep it under control.

First I re-purposed my button tray to hold all the findings. Jump rings, earring posts, chains, etc.   Shaking this box will just move things from one cell to another, so I decided to keep everything in little baggies to minimize random things flying out upon opening.

For the second box, a standard photo-box, I've got pre-made jewelry kits, wire, little zip up baggies, a wigjig, a knot maker, various pliers and cutters, and a box of charms.

Charms were removed from any cardboard packaging, and were also individually bagged.

And the last, most tedious box: beads.  I used an old mooncake tin and many of my mom's old film canisters.  I stored beads in film cans before, but with the lids on you could never tell what was inside.
This time I bagged the contents, and left the lids off. I'm still not convinced this is the best method, but we'll see how it works out.

Anyway, I was able to save a lot of space by removing all the bulky packaging and switching to baggies instead.  I also took a lot of the saved broken jewelry, salvaging the pieces I wanted and removing the rest.

Though it's not very pretty (no coordinated, matching boxes), it is nice and neat, back in its cubby!

How many cubbies left? =_="

How do you store your jewelry making supplies? Any good tips?

Easy DIY Photo Bracelet

I bought a bunch of plastic stretchy bracelets and matching adhesive covers from Beadaholique because..well, they were cheap and I have a craft supply hoarding problem.

I wanted to make "boyfriend" bracelets for cons - you know, with my anime bfs. lol.  I started compiling a list of eligible fellas, but couldn't par it down to my top 8 (insert out-dated myspace reference here). :P I'm still working on it. The only one I'm 100% including is Trunks, my first love. Haha!

Anyway, Penga-Sis thought the idea needed to be more cohesive than just random guys, so she made an attack on titan boyfriend bracelet! She found the pictures she wanted, printed and cut them to fit the circles..

Some of those are kinda questionable choices IMO. Maybe an all-Levi bracelet would've worked better.

A small dab of tacky glue was used to stick each picture into the bracelet.

Admittedly, I do have a soft spot for Connie. I don't think Levi agrees though.

 Let it dry, then just pop the adhesive backed cover sticker on top!

Armin has seen terrible things!

I love the bevel it gives - but I don't think this is waterproof or anything.  The sticker is pretty strong though, so it shouldn't fall out.

Marcoooo!

Anyway, it's a fun craft I think for kids (or fangirls)! You could put any favorite pictures inside. I still need to work on mine before Fanime!

Sis, the happy crafter!

DIY Shrink Film Charms

Remember shrinky dinks?  Those fun bits of plastic you drew on and then baked into miniature bits?  I (and my mom) did my entire 4th grade mission model in shrinky dink diorama. @_@

Anyway, did you know that they make printable shrinky film now? I had no idea until recently. Imagine the possibilities!

I found a pack of white printable shrink film at Dick Blick.  Time to go to town.

I started with Link and some chickens (a button idea I never had time to finish before Fanime). You print just as you normally would, only set the image color saturation to 50%.  Since the film shrinks, all the colors get intensified, so you want to start with less color!

Cut the charms out carefully.  Since it's plastic, I couldn't cut this in the machine, but instead by hand. It can be a little tricky if you have a lot of small corners!

Next, baking time! I put the film face up on a piece of cardboard, and covered it with a sheet of vellum paper. Baked at 300 degrees F until I saw all the pieces curl up and shrink. (Package said 3-5 minutes.)

Shrunk!

See how Links face got all pink?  Too much saturation!

Anyway, they make some pretty fun charms!  You'll want to coat them with something though, so the ink doesn't come off. I used polyurethane at first, but it started to turn the charms yellowish.  The newer ones use clear nail polish.  We'll see how that works in the long run!

Maou-sama, from Hataraku Maou-Sama!

In his MgRonald's garb, of course.

I put Link and chickens on a dollar store phone stylus for my sister.  I sent Maou-sama to Cousin T. I love how the plastic gets pretty thick when it shrinks. Nice and sturdy!

But why stop at just charms? Penga-Sis came over so we made earrings too! Dragonballs for me and Rainbow Dash cutie marks for her.

They shrink a lot! By 1/3 or 1/4 I guess?

We used some tacky glue to attach some posts.

Sak thinks the dragonballs look too much like buttons though :{

I love the cutie mark earrings though! They are pretty cool.

Anyway, I see loads of potential with this fancy printable plastic. Definitely will be prepared with some otaku ear gear at the next con, anyway!

DIY Black Bird Pendant

Black Bird is a very Twilight-esque manga - just replace vampires and werewolves with tengu and kitsune and other Japanese folklore creatures. Girl is special. Magical boy must have her. But it might hurt her. Internal strife! Throw in some family problems and a magical creature war and you get the idea. 

(source)

It's got pretty good art, in particular I think the artist has a very decent handle on the bishonen-smoldering-look.

(source) k, maybe not here. Hehe.

Anyway, though it's not my favorite manga of all time, I like the supernatural folklore (versus your typical school-life shoujo), and I like that it goes beyond the "yay, we like each other, let's hold hands"-and-then-the story-ends.

Basically, if you like Twilight, you'll like this manga. (Though, I gotta put in a warning for any younger readers - it can get a little racy/hot and heavy/whatever-kids-are-calling-it-these-days so be aware.)

(source) Sparkly!

Anyway, there's a part where Kyo (tengu boy) gives Misao (girl) his longest feather for protection. He makes it into a necklace for her to wear.

Long story short, I made my own necklace and pretended Sak was a tengu and I stole his feather. Muahaha. 

Want to make one? It's really easy, just need a couple feet of black chain, black feather charm and a couple jumpers! Should come out to around $5 depending where you get your supplies. :)

The best part is you can wear this type of necklace anytime, and be covert-otaku, unlike wearing, say,a giant Magic Knight Rayearth mirror pendant around your neck. @_@

DIY Twilight Ring

I have a love/hate relationship with online beading/jewelry stores. On one hand, it's a great and economical way to get the stuff you want, but on the other hand, there's SO much stuff to look through that you often come away with a cart full of "extras".

One of these extras happened to be this awesome filigree ring setting from Beadaholique:

Isn't it pretty? And only a $1.50!

Anyway, there was a tutorial attached to the listing, prompting me to buy the matching glass stones to put into the setting.  I printed and cut a small Cullen family crest to go inside, perfect for my Twilight-loving friend!

To glue it together I brushed on a thin layer of mod podge. You can see how half of it is dry (clear) and the other half is still wet (cloudy) below:

I love how the orb-shaped glass looks!

Would Edward approve? :)

I'll always have fond memories of seeing the last Twilight movie with my friend M, so I think this was a somewhat fitting gift!

DIY Faux Pearl Jewelry

I kinda looked for my bridesmaid jewelry last minute before Cousin T's wedding, and you know how it goes...When you're looking for that one specific something, you can never quite find it! I was looking for some pale pink pearls, but everything I found had too much white mixed in with it. Boo.

So I thought I'd just wing it, and bought four $1 faux pearl strands from Michaels.  They have a pretty large variety of colors and pearl sizes, so I got two different shades of pink in two sizes to make a double strand necklace.  I also bought a small pack of silver clasps using a 40% coupon.

Other supplies include some beading wire (fishing line would work too), regular wire (or jump rings if you have them), and an earring stud set. I also used a little glue to secure my beading wire, but it's not really necessary if you can tie a good knot!

Most of this stuff I had on hand already since I went on a little jewelry making binge back in college. :P

Anyway, make two jump rings (or just buy some).  To make them, roll some wire around a round nose plier.

String the pearls on some of the beading wire, and tie each end to a jump ring.  I made each strand 21" long, which left me a handful of beads left over!

After making two strands (attached to the same two jump rings), attach the clasp on and you're done!

Gotta trim up the extra beading wire though >.>"

With the extra beads, I glued two of the larger ones to the ear studs for instant earrings!

Only, it is still a bead, so there's a funky hole in the side.  No one can notice from far away though, right?

Not bad for ~$5 in supplies!

And an action shot from Cousin T's wedding..

I love pearls for some reason (fancy but not too shiny, maybe?) so I've already worn these to work too.  My co-worker wants to make a set in black pearl, I think that'll be pretty! Maybe a black/grey combo?

Do you have a favorite type of necklace? Pendant, illusion, choker? Does anyone even wear chokers anymore? I remember those plastic stretchy "tattoo" chokers and bracelets everyone used to wear back in the 90's. If they ever make a come-back I am totally wearing them again, they were fun. Ha!