Tag Archives: CHA Crafts

Crafting, One Minute Wisdoms

More CHA Show Goodies, Jewelry Making Edition

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(NOTE: Click on images to enlarge for better viewing)  I bet a lot of you don’t know that I got my start as a professional artist in the medium of Stained Glass.  My sister had been in business for a couple of years and taught me the basics.  My career took off from there.  I did craft shows, custom design work and even helped her in a custom commission for turret windows in the rebuilding of a Victorian Mansion in Ventura County.  The mansion had burned to the ground during restoration work.  The Historical Society was able to pull together the best crafts people of the modern age and recreate the home, it was amazing to see.

One of the things that convinced me to give up doing stained glass work was the poisonous nature of the materials involved.  Lead and other dangerous compounds were in almost every supply I used on a daily basis.  I valued my health too much to compromise my life-expectancy for art.

Fast forward to the CHA show and I discovered some wonderful soldering products that can be used for creating jewelry and are entirely lead free.  Simply Swank has a delightful range of products for making very fun and contemporary charms and other jewelry pieces both easily and safely.

In the picture above, There is a delightful contraption that holds your piece so that your hands are free and don’t get near the extremely hot liquid metal.  This is quite helpful especially in soldering tiny charms.  This item can be used for many other projects than making jewelry.  It literally is your “third hand!”

HERE’S THE LINK TO THE SIMPLY SWANK WEBSITE

Think of all the uses that this jewelry craft can make of the digital art you probably already own.  Think of the heart-touching jewelry you could make with your treasured family vintage photos.  The look can vary from Victorian to contemporary to very feminine!  I’m hoping to get my daughter, Jennifer (the jewelry making daughter) started in this so she can make me some fun jewelry pieces.

You can also use copper foil and solder to create magnets, sun-catchers, wind chimes and dozens of other crafts.  HERE’S ANOTHER LINK TO SOLDERED ORNAMENTS FOR IDEAS.

Later I’ll share a company that produces a microwave kiln for producing fused glass!  Talk about AWESOME, wow that looked like so much fun.

Crafting

More CHA Show Ideas

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Unfortunately, I can not remember the booth name on these next pictures.  Some “reporter” I am!  However, I thought this was a great picture of what could be done for a little girl’s birthday party using your extra scrapbooking supplies or digital art.  I loved the little feather boa trim on the hats — and what little girl wouldn’t too?!

On the shelf below is a cute idea for party goodie bags.  Using rolled up paper to match they’ve simply filled the tubes with goodies and wrapped them in cellophane and tied off the ends.  So simple but so cute.

The head band crowns are much easier than the wonderfully complicated and elegant K & C examples.  Dollar Tree would be a great source for the head bands and then simply cut the shape and decorate with either decoupage flowers or silk flowers, jewels, glitter and other fun embellishments.

Up above the same display was hanging an “Oh So Simple” birthday banner.  They used a gathered lace base and glued on decorated circles ith the letters.  You could also add streaming ribbons to the banner and dimensional layers such as butterflies or flowers to dress it out further.

Taking this same idea a little further, you could create a birthday banner for any theme.  For a garden party, use flower shapes.  For a tea party, use tea cup shapes.  You can print them easily on standard sized printers with your usual paper.

I saw these at a make and take for felting.  If you’ve never tried felting, it is about as easy a craft as there is and just watching her repeatedly plunging the felting needle rythmically into the project produced a soothing, restful feel.

These cupcakes were just so cute!  Wouldn’t they make an adorable centerpiece?  All they did to make them was decorate styrofoam balls cut in half with felting wool material.  They used pearl stick pins and a small painted, glittered ball with some felt leaves.  The cupcake base was felt that was cut with pinking shears and stitched lines made the “folds.”  If you substituted another material for the styrofoam balls, wouldn’t these make an adorable pincushion?