Pendents, Keyrings, and a Bookmark Experiment

I finished up the pendent tray kits I had ordered this week. I still had some thumbnail prints of my original art on good matte photo paper from the first twenty-three I made (see previous post) for Christmas gifts, including one for myself and one for hubby.

These have been glued to the glass domed cabochons with Diamond Glaze and left to dry. Some have not been trimmed to size yet. This time I sealed BOTH sides of the print, and the metal tray, before gluing anything together. Although, the first ones I made seem to be okay, I just wanted to be on the safe side this time. I'm still learning!

These have been glued into the trays with the Diamond Glaze and left to dry. It's almost impossible to keep from getting some glue on the glass, at least it is for me, so, when all is dry, I will use a bit of alcohol to clean the glue off, and attach the necklace chains and keyrings, and they will be ready for small gifts as I need them. They will also make good purse jewelry or tree ornaments, etc.

This set includes gelli plate prints/monotypes, mandalas, paintings, and a quirky doodle sketch painting, and they are done in open media acrylics, inktense watercolor, and mixed-media.

These are about an inch in size, and I love them, but I'm looking forward to doing some larger pieces, maybe a couple of inches in size. I'm trying to decide on the style and colors I want, and I have a hard time making up my mind about anything. :/

Front and Back

I have a stack of end papers that I have cut off of larger prints, so after a gelli plate printing session the other day, I cleaned off my plate with some of them, thinking they might make good bookmarks. 

This last week, I decided to do a trial run with one. I added a few marks to the front in black gel pen, let it dry while I cut a piece of laminate, then lay the paper on the laminate and pressed it down. Only then did I notice the plain white, paint smudged, ugly back, that I had meant to do something about before I stuck it down. It happened that I had another print the exact same size, so I used Diamond Glaze glue to glue it to the back of the first print, and tried to get it smoothed out and dry. I also used a heat gun a bit to speed up drying. I hoped it was dry and adhered the other piece of laminate to the back, pressed good, trimmed to size, and punched a hole in the top for embellishing with beads, tassels, etc. Next time I'll print both sides of the paper! Much easier!

This one was only a trial, mostly to learn what "not to do". The next ones will have embellishments on the top and some words/writing added. Stay tuned to see what I come up with! 

Happy creating, whatever your activity of choice!