Christmas bling!

Well I am really into the swing of Christmas crafting now so I thought that I would share my latest Christmas project with you.

These brooches are made with shrink plastic. I used shapes from various templates. The two part snowman was made using the 2” and 3” circles from the circle template . The one part snowman is from the Tags-1 template and the Christmas tree is from the original Christmas template. I took the snowflake from a Cricut shape and simplified it as intricate shapes sometimes don’t behave themselves when shrinking.

There is also a newer Christmas template  which has a great reindeer and angel on (mmmm perhaps I feel a shopping trip coming on).

Some shrink plastic is too thick to cut with the Shapecutter plus . On some of mine I either made a paper template with the Shapecutter plus or I simply made score lines instead and followed those to cut round with scissors or the finger tip craft knife .

Some were on white shrink plastic and some on clear. After cutting the shape I decorated them with Sakura gel pens. These work very well because the glittery effect intensifies after shrinking. If you want to attach dangles or attach two pieces together with a jump ring then you MUST remember to make the holes BEFORE shrinking. I used the large eyelet setters and the small craft mat as the holes need to be quite big (as they will get smaller later!).

I won’t bore you with the details of shrinking the plastic as I’m sure you already know, but it is important to get the finished shape flat to make sticking the brooch back on easier.

I have had these tiny coloured bells for ages so I am really pleased that this project is the perfect chance to use them. I made some simple dangles to go on the white snowflake and attached these with a larger jump ring.

I added tiny gems to most of the brooches after shrinking and encapsulated the lot with ‘Glossy accents’ to keep the gems in place. You will note that one of the snowmen has suffered an injury to his mouth. For some reason the glossy accents made the black gel pen run but the other colours are fine! Well we all learn by our mistakes so I kept him in so you can learn from mine.!

For all you non jewellrey makers out there you must give these a go. The only ‘specialised’ tools needed are the Fiskars wire cutters and pliers  and some jump rings. So no excuses… It might start you on the road to a whole new addiction of bead buying!

More Christmas crafting for my final project in two weeks time…