Wood Burned Feather Pendant

One of my Christmas presents was a wood burning tool which my Mum bought for me before I'd even said I wanted one. She's psychic!

I tried it out after Christmas and made this feather pendant.

I used the tool on some scrap wood to get used to it before moving on to the feather. It came with lots of different nibs and I discovered I prefer using the flat one instead of the round, more pen like one. 

Once I'd burned in my design I cut the shape out using a saw and sanded the edges.

I added a few more burned details, especially around the edges.

I drilled a hole in the top, using another Christmas present; a mini drill, and attached a jump ring and chain.

I love how it turned out and now I'm on the look out for scraps of wood, or wooden things in general that I can burn into. Wooden picture frame? Wooden spoons? Entire decorated table?

Nail Varnish Marbled Pendants

So we've all seen the marbled nail varnish technique by now, right?

Well I wondered what else I could use the technique on and I decided on necklace pendants.

I started by making and baking some rough pendant shapes from white Sculpey.

Then I picked out some nail varnish colours and dropped them on to the water.

I gently dropped the Sculpey pendants into the water, scooped up the excess nail varnish, then picked out the pendant.

I inadvertently decorated my finger nails at the same time. I think I should have remembered the Vaseline trick.

After I'd sprayed the nail varnish with a coat of clear varnish I painted the edge of the Sculpey piece  with silver  acrylic paint. Then I drilled a hole in the top of the pendants and attached a jump rings and chain.

I also made a gold version with green and gold nail varnish.

What do you think?

Pin it!

Fimo Pendant

When I was mixing the Fimo for these shell hairslides I noticed that all the bright colours mixed in with the black looked pretty cool.

So I took some of the Fimo and rolled it out, making an awesome looking pattern.

I shaped it and put in a hole, and made myself a pendant.

After I baked the Fimo the colours weren't as bright, but a coat of clear varnish fixed that.

I love the swirly, marbled colours.

I also made a long, thin pendant where the colours twist around it.

Oh Fimo, what did I do without you?

Matchstick Pendants

When I was at uni I bought a bag of these wooden matchsticks one weekend thinking they would be useful for my model making, only to find that my friend Natalie had bought me the same thing.

I thought it was about time I did something with my abundance of matchsticks.

Ok, this project only used 18 of them, but it's a start.

I started experimenting with shapes that I could make using the sticks, and UHU'd them together.

I also added some E6000 to make sure they didn't fall apart.

I painted them black, added a jump ring, and hey presto; geometric pendant.

I think they look pretty cool.

I picked black because my outfits tend to be black + another colour, so I figured they pendants would go with most things I wear.

I don't know how long they'll last, because they are just glued together, but they're doing all right for now.

Spreading the craft

I recently took part in a craft swap hosted by Kelsey over at Artichoke Designs.

I made something for Katie from Sweet Rustic who is from Australia. My little package took 3 weeks to get there!

Based on the aesthetic of her blog name I made Katie this pendant. I (or rather my Dad!) cut the wood and I sanded it to a round shape. Then I painted on the rose and varnished it and added some pretty pink ribbon.

I also sent Katie this pair of simple earrings that I put together.

I think the craft swap is still going on so head over to Kelsey's blog to take part.