Come Make Art With Me!

Creative Classes In Paper   Presented by Suzanne Glazier of Pennywise Arts

 

There is still time to join me at Art 'n Soul in Olympia this Sunday for TWO fun classes!

 

Bottle Cap Pendants $25  (12:00 noon)

Using supplies from Pennywise Arts and Bottlecap, Inc. we will complete 5 pendants of different design in about 90 minutes.

Class kit includes ball chain and beautiful clear lid gift boxes for all 5 pendants.  So easy and so beautiful!  Check five friends off your Christmas gift list lickety split!

 

Handmade Paper Stars!  $28  (2:30 pm)

These incredible three dimensional stars are over 13” across and are made completely of paper! Learn how easy it is to create one of your very own with templates from Pennywise Arts! Students will be given additional templates to take home, including bonus pages with a variety of star sizes.

Students may wish to bring their own basic supply kit with scissors, cutting mat and craft knife to reduce any waiting time for shared materials.

Call Art ‘N Soul to get registered! 360.357.6820

Art ‘N Soul is located at 909 Sleater Kinney Rd SE Ste 12, in Lacey, WA.

Hope to see you there!  Hugs, Suzanne

Other class offerings can be found on our website:  http://www.pennywisearts.com/classes.php 

Private art parties are available at my place or yours!

Bottle Cap Pendants Kits and Classes

Creative Classes In Paper

Presented by Suzanne Glazier of Pennywise Arts

  Using supplies from Pennywise Arts and Bottlecap, Inc. we will complete 5 pendants of different design in about 90 minutes.

Class kit includes ball chain and beautiful clear lid gift boxes for all 5 pendants.

Price $25         5 student minimum

 

Let your favorite stamp stores know you would like to have me come teach, I’d love to see you! 

If you bring a friend to my North Bend, WA studio for a class the 5 student minimum is waived.

 

This is a sample of the class display that will be on loan to stores with scheduled classes.

Hugs, Suzanne

P.S. Mail order students need to have clear drying glue to create the project.  (I recommend Diamond Glaze).  All parts, pieces and detailed instructions are included in the class packet. Shipping is additional. $25 for the first kit (includes 5 complete project kits) and $5.50  for each kit thereafter on the same invoice.  Designs will be random without duplicates.  Requests are welcome and will be met whenever possible. Allow one week processing.  Contact me directly to place a class by mail order.

Cherub Pin

Microscope slides always made wonderful jewelry!   This one uses two glass slides, a collage sheet from our Swing Shift Designs Valentine Collection, a piece of sheet music, some wire, seed beads, a self adhesive pin back, 1/4”  O’So Sticky Tape and gold and red opaque micro beads.

It probably only took about 15 minutes to do from design, assemble and finish.  A great project for office or teacher Valentine gifts!

For more details on “how to” as well as other photos see our tutorial on the website!

Hugs,  Suzanne

Valentine Brad Charms

Yep, I’m still making brads into charms, pendants, key chains, magnets, you name it! 

Here are my Valentine ones!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The top two are for sale, $15 each.  Use the “Contact Me” button to send an email if you are interested. 

 

The lower one is a prize for a Valentine challenge on the PWA Yahoo Group!

 

Hugs, Suzanne

Holiday Chipboard Pins

If you are looking to make something simple to give to teachers, friends or co-workers these darling beaded pins are a winner!

A stamped design is layered onto a chipboard backing for durability then O’So Sticky Tape is placed over the top.  The edges are dipped in a colorful mixture of micro beads and the center is filled in with clear beads for a sparkly finish.  Add a pin or magnet to the back and it’s done!

Beadie Buddy, Beth Ullman made these cute samples!

Hugs, Suzanne

Dominoes For Pins and Pendants

Autumn is an exciting time!   I love the changing colors on the trees and getting my comfy sweaters and sweatshirts out of the back of my closet.  November always reminds me that the holidays are nearing and “Craft Season” is in full swing!

Every year I vow to myself that I will have all of my gifts completed by Thanksgiving.  The times I’ve succeeded have been some of the most enjoyable and memorable holidays.  When I’ve achieved my Thanksgiving goal I’ve had more time to spend with friends and family.  I’ve felt relaxed, ready and open to more Christmas magic and spontaneity.  That in itself should be enough motivation but my “wonder woman” mentality still gets the best of me every couple of years and I procrastinate until the last minute.

This year, I need a plan.  Thanksgiving is just a few weeks away and I better get busy!  I’m thinking about making jewelry for the women on my gift list.  I have several (okay, quite a lot!) of the brad pendants ready to go and I would also like to do some domino pendants.  Below are some created by Evelyn Spikes.  Evelyn’s art is great inspiration!

Dominoes are an excellent stamping surface.  No bleaching is necessary when using Staz On or alcohol based inks or even the Adirondak markers from Ranger.  If you prefer to use colored pencils or Twinkling H2Os an overnight soak in bleach will insure success.  Rinse thoroughly with water and they are ready to go.

Here’s a pendant that I made several years ago.  (When my photography was way worse than it is now!)

I stamped the image (from Stampin Up!) with black Staz On ink and used the pad to color the sides and the back black.  The image was painted with Twinkling H2Os.  I used a clear sealer over the top to protect it from scratching.  Black micro beads were added around the edges with 1/4”  O’So Sticky Tape.

Pennywise Arts has gorgeous pre-drilled dominoes for handmade pins, pendants and ornaments.  The predrilled hole goes clear through and makes for a more secure and easy to assemble pendant or hanger for ornaments.  If the hole isn’t needed it can be quickly filled with spackle or white toothpaste or covered with micro beads or ribbon.

Our drilled dominoes are brand new, standard full size dominoes. They measure 1" wide, 2" tall and 3/8" thick.  The hole is 1/8" in diameter.  They can be purchased on our website.  If you prefer to pay by credit card or money order just shoot me an email with your phone number and I’ll fix you up!

Tomorrow I will be posting Christmas ornaments made from dominos in our art swap on the Pennywise Yahoo Group!

Hugs, Suzanne

Beware! Brad Pendants Are Highly Addictive!

When I was growing up my family played a lot of board games. One of my favorites was “Can’t Stop” from Parker Brothers.  It’s a game of risk, chance and mostly… self control.  I lacked much of the latter which is why I think it best that I don’t go to casinos.  Ü

Creating the pendants from altered brads has had the same effect on me as that board game from long ago.  I just Can’t Stop!  I’ve decided that less is more when it comes to the Glossy Accents.  Originally I had envisioned a nice thick bubble of clear dried GA over the top.  But the thicker it gets the less I like the way it looks so I am shifting my vision to something different and it’s working better for me.  This pendant has a beautiful piece of paper from a Papaya card for the background with a thin layer of GA over the top.  Then I laid the gems on top and let it dry overnight.

Walking away and leaving them overnight seems to be what I need to do.  Otherwise I find a way to bump it, mess it up, tip it over or drop something on it.  What a goober!  I didn’t add micro beads to the one above because the background is already pretty busy.

These next two are my new favorites!

Both also have background paper from punched up Papaya greeting cards.  The one on the left has gems and a colorful mixture of micro beads (I made sure that there weren’t any fuchsia ones after the previous problem with color bleeding.)  The one on the right has a charm that I got from Michael’s Craft store.

I’m trying to pace myself since I only have a total of 12 brads to play with until my order gets here!  My table has a lovely assortment of papers and embellishments just waiting!

Until next time, Suzanne

Brads Into Pendants Take Two

My 4th attempt at making a pretty pendant from a big brad definitely showed improvement!  (If you missed trials 1 – 3 look at yesterdays post).  I’m using the back side of the brad as a bezel for holding my decorative paper, beads and embellishments.  I covered the paper with a thick coating of Glossy Accents and then waited about 45 minutes.  Then I added the decorative brad to the middle and a mixture of micro beads all around.  The fuchsia beads are bleeding in the glue, I’m not sure why.  I’m not going to use them anymore even though I really love the color.

Trial #5 was done leaving the paper out of the bezel for the Glossy Accents and beading process.  It’s a much thinner coat of gloss than I was getting with the paper inside but the trade off is that the color of the image is pretty true.  I will tack this into a bezel.

And my 6th attempt is really my favorite so far:

This image has just a light brushing (as in with a paint brush) of Glossy Accents over the top.  I placed the micro beads and the topaz gem and let them dry in place.  Then I went back over the image and the micro beads with another brushing of Glossy Accents to seal them.  The thinning covering is starting to grow on me.  I originally imagined filling the bezel to the top with a clear drying glue so for awhile this one felt like a failure.  Then I changed my perspective and now it’s my favorite.

I think I will try using a two part acrylic pourable medium on my next attempts, just to see if they will dry clear even when applied thickly over the images.

Hugs, Suzanne

P.S.  Most of the backgrounds I used are from greeting cards made by Papaya.  I love the colorful images and had a lot of fun going through my cards and selecting what to “punch” from them!    The papers are 1” in diameter, so the 32mm brads leave a nice border around the edges as a frame.

Brads into Pendants Take One

When I posted to the Pennywise Yahoo group that I was too cheap to pay $4 for a single bezel I got lots of great input, ideas and links!  Debbie Warren shared this photo of how she turned big brads into bezels by breaking off one leg and curling the other: This was something I definitely had to try myself!  Finding the big 32mm brads turned out to be a bit tricky, they seemed to be sold out everywhere I turned, even JoAnn’s and Michaels craft stores.  I was finally able to locate some online $3 for a box of 12 – a price I can really sink my budget into!

The brads I liked are from Karen Foster Design and are called Big Time Brads, Antique Metal.

I was able to find the brads in smaller sizes but I really liked that the big time brads matched a circle punch I have!  Ü

Making the bezel was super easy.  The metal is soft and easy to manipulate into a curl with a pair of round jewelry pliers.  The important thing is not to bend it all the way at the base but rather curl it into place.  Stressing the metal at the base caused my first attempt to break off.   The extra leg broke off easily and I sanded the rough edge it left with a sanding block. 

The rest of this article is really a diary of trial and error and trying again and again.  I’ll admit up front that I still haven’t found the “perfect” process for me, but I think I am getting close!

This was my first attempt followed by all the things I learned and was puzzled by:

I punched a circle with the “keys” from some old K & Company papers that I have.  I tacked the image into the bottom of my brad/bezel and put Diamond Glaze over the whole thing.  I set a smaller decorative brad into the goo (on the left side) and sprinkled a colorful mixture of micro beads on top.  I struggled with air bubbles and their determination to not be popped.  The decorative brad sunk, the color on the fuchsia micro beads bled and the Diamond Glaze dried with a muddy yellow hue and a sunken dip in the middle.  I filled the dip two times, evidenced by the light lines you can see on the right side of the pendant. 

The paper in the background shows the original coloring that the paper had before being coated.  I wonder if my Diamond Glaze is just old.

Trial #2

Basically I did the same process as before.  The fuchsia micro beads bled again and as the pendant dried the beads that were all nicely scattered about pulled together into groups.  Weird.  The Diamond Glaze is still yellowish so I moved to using Glossy Accents.

Trial #3

This time I put some gems on the paper before I put the goo in.  Don’t do that.  While I was sleeping the glue just lifted the gems up and they floated wherever they wanted until drying NOT where I put them.   The Glossy Accents definitely finished more clear and didn’t discolor my background image as much (compare in photo above).  It’s quite possible that my Diamond Glaze is over 5 years old, so I’m not going to rule it out as a future possibility in case age has something to do with the discoloration. 

Note to self: The fuchsia beads bled again.  Apparently there is something different about that coating because none of the other colors bled.  So stop putting them into these pendants!

More things to make you go “hmmmmmmmmmm” on this subject tomorrow!

Hugs, Suzanne

A Trio Of Paper Jewels To Wear

Stephanie Loomis’s embellishment of her paper flowers really makes her jewelry unique.  She uses glass beads, chain, micro beads, wire and charms to complete each piece.  Her three piece set of burgundy and orange is quite amazing. 

My photography however is not quite so amazing.  It really made me sad today when I couldn’t get a picture that truly captured the beauty of this trio.  I’ll keep working at it.  Even though photography isn’t my forte it is a necessary skill for blogging and sharing!

Here is a closer look at the necklace: 

  And a close up of the coordinating lapel pin:

Thanks for sharing with us Stephanie! 

And now we want to share the love with our readers!  If you would like a chance to win one of Stephanie’s necklaces  just send me an email that says “Stephanie’s Jewelry Rocks!”  My email address is suzanne@pennywisearts.com

The random drawing will take place next week!

Hugs,  Suzanne

P.S.  If you’re just joining us be sure to look at the last several posts to see how Stephanie made these!

Foam Flower Wearables

Stephanie also created a pretty necklace with fun foam.  This one was inspired by the paper flower idea she got in a magazine.

 

How To Make The Foam Flowers

Supplies: fun foam, die cut machine (Sizzix), black ink (Staz-On by Tsukineko), rubber stamp (sentiment or small pattern. Mine is The Angel Company), white glue, microbeads, mulberry paper

Directions:

1.  Cut flowers from foam.

 

2.  Stamp on flowers.

3.  Discard flower centers

4.  Cut a base for the back side of the flower. (I used a rounded rectangle) 

5.  Tear mulberry paper into leaf shapes.

6.  Glue leaves onto base.

7.  Glue flower on top of leaves.

8.  Fill flower center with white glue.

9.  Add micro beads.

 

10.  Let dry.

 

From there the directions are the same as the paper necklace (see previous post)

Necklace:

1. Decide how the flowers will be clustered.
2. Glue them to a base of felt or foam.
3. When dry, trim the base so it doesn't show.
4. Use a paper piercer to create holes in the base to add jump-rings, wire, and/or ribbon.
5. Embellish as desired....

Stephanie also created a matching hair clip to complete this fun fashionable artwear.

 

Just wait until you see the NEXT set Stephanie created,….. oh my WOW!

Hugs, Suzanne

A Hairclip To Match

  As I pulled all of Stephanie’s jewelry pieces out to photograph them I discovered this cute little floral hairclip, it matches the necklace I just posted. In handling each piece over and over to get reasonable good pictures I realized just how durable these flowers are!  Don’t let the idea of paper jewelry scare you off – these guys will definitely last a long time!

Hugs, Suzanne

Handmade Paper Jewelry

Our featured designer for the month of April was Stephanie Loomis.  With all the retreat hoopla I forgot to schedule her projects on the blog.  So sorry Steph!

Stephanie is a Southern Belle and makes her home in Georgia.  Stephanie has been around the PWA community for almost as long as I have!  She’s visited us here in the Seattle area for a retreat and I’ve have the adventure of visiting her and attending a retreat in Georgia.  Fun stuff!

Steph calls herself and accidental artist.  I’ll let her explain.

“I call myself an Accidental Artist because I came to art by a circuitous route--via literature, theater, photography, music, education, and rubber stamping. Now I fully embrace mixed media and altered arts as my expression and my therapy. I teach secondary school literature and composition two days a week which leaves me studio time. I frequently incorporate art elements into my literature classes to teach symbolism, point-of-view, and anywhere else I can combine literature and art. I've been married since 1987 and have three daughters born 1990, 1993, and 1996. God is good--all the time. That's the motto of my moments and the inspiration of my life.”

For her first project of 2011 Stephanie says,  “I was inspired by the March/April edition of Cloth, Paper, Scissors. There was an article there about making paper flower jewelry. I tweaked it to meet my skills.”

This is one of the gorgeous paper jewelry pieces that Stephanie submitted for her assignment.  There is a close up picture at the end of the tutorial where you can really see and appreciate her attention to detail.

How To Make The Paper Flowers

Supplies:

White Glue, old paper (newspaper, old books, whatever), fun foam (or felt, which is what the magazine used. I happened to have to foam on hand.), acrylic paint, water, alcohol ink spritzer (Shimmerz by Tsukineko; Walnut ink by Tsukineko; Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels), micro beads from Pennywise Arts

Directions:

1.  Paint papers with watered-down acrylic paints. Be messy.

2.  When paint is dry, Spray with alcohol ink spray.

3.  Tear paper into strips about 1" wide.

4.  Tear strips into pieces 1/2" - 1" long. (The magazine recommended a barrel shape, but that was too hard for me to do consistently.)

5.  Twist each piece at one end and fan out the other end. This is a single petal.

6.  Cut or punch a circle from the foam.

7.  Assemble the flower by gluing one petal at a time,   beginning with the outside of the foam circle and working inward in layers.

8.  Let dry.  (Showing another color combo)

9.  Apply glue to the petal edges with a toothpick.

10.  Dip in micro beads.

11.  Let dry.

How To Make The Necklace:

1. Decide how the flowers will be clustered.
2. Glue them to a base of felt or foam.
3. When dry, trim the base so it doesn't show.
4. Use a paper piercer to create holes in the base to add jump-rings, wire, and/or ribbon.
5. Embellish as desired....

Here is a up close shot of Stephanie’s beautiful and beadiful necklace! 

Remember you can click any photo on the blog to see an even larger version!

Well done in an amazing way Steph!  And there’s more to come!

To see more about Stephanie and her art, photography and life all mixed together visit her blog:  

http://mrsl-dramateach.blogspot.com/

Hugs, Suzanne