DIY Shrink Plastic Charms

I don't know if you know, but I have a thing for shrink plastic. I love playing with it. I love how it changes images and messes with my sense of proportion and size. Yeah, we all know I like teeny, tiny things. Shrink plastic affords me the ability to make really tiny, detailed things!

I love the idea in this video! These gear charms are some of my favorite charms right now. But they are a bit spendy, so I don't use them much. And that makes me sad. Now the problem is solved! I get to mix my shrink plastic love with my embossing powder love, too! Yay!

Hope you learned something cool here. I did!

Tracy has a lot of neat paper art on her blog at tracystreasures-tracy.blogspot.com. She has many more videos on her channel at www.youtube.com/user/TracysTreasures24.

Happy charm making!

- Vickie

Postcard Swap 2010 Postcards

Long time no see, folks! I’ve been really ill with the migraines and we’re in the middle of trying something new for them. So far so good, I’m happy to report!

I finally got my 10 handmade postcards done for iHanna’s swap! Whew! So they are going out in the mail ASAP. But before I send them I made sure to scan and photograph them for you to enjoy! Here’s a peek:

The bases for the postcards are heavy watercolor papers. I cut them down to 4" x 6". Then I glued down random paper scraps with matte gel medium. After that dried I painted each card differently with craft acrylic paint. They still just needed something, you know? So I stamped the birds in black Archival Ink by Ranger. Great ink for stamping on things that are not porous. The little birdie above got her own crown as I added details with fine tip Sharpies markers.

I signed and dated the back of each card and wrote a special note to the mystery recipients. Some cards are going to Australia and Sweden! I've never sent mail there!

Click image above to go to flickr where you can see each postcard scanned individually. Tell me which is your favorite in the comments!

The postcard swap project was conceived at the Twitter party called #craftsocial. They have a website at CraftSocial.net. Read more about this Twitter party on their "About" page. It's a bunch of crafty tweeple chatting up artsy craftsy things on Twitter!

The next Craft Social will be on Saturday, February 20, 2010 from 3 – 5 PM, EST. The first hour of the event will be dedicated to craft #fails – they dare you to show your worst! See you on Twitter!