I have yet to share with you the swaps I made for convention back in November. It seems such a long time ago already!
Annoyingly, I was so late in finishing these up – about midnight prior to boarding a train at 6am to head for Paris – that I forgot to take pictures myself. Thankfully I kept one swap, and a couple of other convention friends send me some pictures to use. It’s still a shame, as I made about 70 of these and they looked fab all together.
So what did I make – they are bracelet charms with mini drawstring bags!
My mum, bless her, helped me out by making all of the bags for me. They are made from two pieces of 3”x3” Flirtatious Designer Fabric which my mum stitched into and bag and used Very Vanilla 1/8” Taffeta Ribbon to the bag could be close up. She was a superstar in getting these all done for me, and they looked brilliant.
My part was to make the charm. I used an A4 sheet of Pretty in Pink card stock and did a one sheet wonder using the Delicate Doilies stamp set inked in Melon Mambo and Wisteria Wonder. I then cut this sheet into little squares that fitted over the third biggest butterfly on the Beautiful Wings Embosslit. I had to do a lot of running it through the Big Shot as I only had one of these embosslits………….. Once this was done I then proceeded to cover each side of the butterfly in Crystal Effects. I left it over night after doing one side, then did the other and left over night again. I then thought this wasn’t making it stiff enough, so went on to do each side twice more, so three coats all over in total.
I used the 2mm Handheld Punch to give me a hole to put a jump ring through and this was then connected to a small clasp. My other half really helped me out as the last hours before leaving for convention were upon us, and he did most of the jump ring / clasp connections.
I printed a label topper onto Melon Mambo, Pretty in pink and Wisteria Wonder card and punched them out with the Decorative Label Punch. I used Basic Black card as a backing which had a recipe label on the back, then popped then into little cello bags and stapled on the topper.
I think it was a rather ambitious swap for my first convention, but they seemed a big hit which I was pleased about. I didn’t come home with any, but I certainly had a lot of wonderful swaps back that give enormous amounts of inspiration.
So – it just goes to show how versatile Stampin’ Up! products are. I went left field and made jewellery!
I hope you liked them and maybe you’ll think of something else to do with your craft stash……….
