Bead Bling!

Hi everyone! I wanted to share this craft with you. I did it a while ago and made a set for myself as well as each of my children’s grandparents for their frig and everyone loved them!!

This is a quick fun craft that is great for a gift. Pictures can be used but also paper, designs, drawings…. there are so many possibilities!!

Items you need

What you need…

• 1 1/4 inch flat clear circular beads (I bought mine from Hobby Lobby in the wedding section.)
• any clear all purpose glue (Crystal Effects from Stampin’ Up works great. The glue will make the picture more visible when it actually adheres to the gem.)
• 1 1/4 inch circular punch
• magnets (I used magnet 6 strength~ it was strong enough to hold paper on the a frig but is on the thicker side. You can also use cut sheets of magnetic paper but it won’t be able to hold anything.)
• Pictures/paper/design or anything you want to show threw the bead

First, use your circular punch to punch out the image you want to add to the bead. (A great tip I learned in stamping class is to always punch backwards so you can see your image as you punch it! It sure helps people like me that can’t keep things straight!)

Second, put a SMALL amount of Crystal Effects on FRONT of picture (or any other clear glue that you may find to work.)

Third, firmly press image on back side of clear bead and hold for several seconds. It’s best to let it dry completely before next step.

Fourth, put a small amount of Crystal Effect on BACK side of picture.

Next, press magnet where you just placed glue and hold firmly for several second. Let dry overnight. (Keep checking bead as they may start to slip before glue is dry completely, you may have to recenter.)

The picture below is what I made for myself and the kids’ grandparents…

The picture below is what I made in a stamping class the first time ever doing this craft and it was actually just a small part of bigger project… maybe one day I’ll post the entire thing! The background is just paper punched out!

 Hope you enjoyed this!

Until next craft…

Pom Pom Pillow

Getting Sidetracked

So yesterday with our sudden small blizzard I had the full intention of going in strong with trying to get as much done on my baby owl quilt as possible and actually I think I did get pretty far. That will be updated in a post next week when I share it for the WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

Anyway just as I seemed to be cruising along on the quilt I stopped to get something out of the drawer when I looked up and saw my brand new shipment of pom poms staring me in the face and they started calling to me. Wouldnt you know with in 5 min I had my sewing machine and fabric moved and out-of-the-way and 1000 pom poms staring me in the face. There were so many colors and sizes, Honestly I was a little overwhelmed for about 2 min trying to figure out what I was going to do with all these poms. Seeing how I won these in an auction for free on Listia and free shipping to boot this was definitely one of my better so-called “Savings” when it comes to keeping the budget down. After sorting through all the colors and of course separating them into their own colored bags I took my favorite color and then the obvious contrasting colors of black and white, pulled out the hot glue gun grabbed an old throw pillow that needed some restoration and got to work.

      I used some of my purple fleece fabric to finish it off in the back.  I think its cute. If I would have known then what I know now then I would have covered the whole pillow in the fleece before glueing on the Poms. There are a couple of spots that I am going to go back and fill in where the old ugly green fabric is showing through.  Also I probably would not use the bigger ones on the edge. The picture in my head didn’t exactly turn out in real life.

I measured the Fleece to the size of the pillow knowing that it had a  bit of stretch in it so that it could be pulled tight. I took the edge of the fleece and hot glued it to the edge of the last row of Poms securing it just underneath so the poms would stick over a bit hiding the fleece edge as much as possible.

So this is what happens when I get sidetracked. I finish other projects and not the one intended. Has this happened to you? I am sure it happens to everyone. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s always a bad thing. I say as you are not getting sidetracked when it comes to the important things then its ok in my book. Well I look forward to sharing what I did get finished with the Owl Quilt, maybe I can sneak a few more hours in and get the baby almost done by Wednesday.

Happy Crafting from my home to yours