Ladies of Charms

In May 2007, 20 women gathered at ARTISCAPE ( a mixed media, altered, paper, fiber, collage retreat) at Cherry Valley Lodge in Ohio and swapped charms. Inspired by http://justsimplycharming.blogspot.com/, these women created unique charms out of a variety of materials. Some women attached their charms to bracelets and others to necklaces. The results were stunning, one of a kind, pieces of jewelry. As I had so humbly dubbed myself the Most Honorable and Lovely Queen of Charms, I called members of the charms swap my Ladies of Charms. And they were indeed CHARMing Ladies! Thanks to all who participated!
MH&LQoC,
Lennea Truesdell, http://onceuponacottage.blogspot.com

click on photo to enlarge and see detail

# 14 Lennea Truesdell

Since I'm from Kansas, I decided to use Dorothy as my muse for the charms swap. I used a photo reproduction for her head and then finished the rest of her by hand using colored pencils and chalks. I of course had to add red glitter to her shoes! I then used digital editing to add "There's no place like ARTISCAPE". On the back I stamped 2007. The collage was then sandwiched between 1x2 inch pieces of glass and soldered with Silver Gleem solder.

My sites:
http://www.scatteredmomentos.com/
http://onceuponacottage.blogspot.com/
http://www.scatteredmomentos.etsy.com/
http://www.officialmomster.blogspot.com/

Lucky Charm Number 13

I made this charm using a polymer clay bead that I made and a couple of spacer beads. I made the bead by layering several colors of clay, breaking off little peices and then rolling them with a bead roller.

Number 5

I made polymer clay beads layering several colors of clay then using a bead roller to form the beads. I added some spacer beads on a (can't think of the name that finding that has a small bead at the end of a short peice of wire.) This was my first attempt making charms. Thanks for the inspiration!

Debbie Berry #4

"Found Bottle Cap Charms – from Deborah Berry, Berry Patch Designs
1. I gathered the cream soda and root beer bottle caps from my oldest daughter’s bedroom floor and mulled my project over. I enjoy Found Art, and her bedroom is a treasure trove for the that.
2. Just a little peeved that she went back to school (she’s in college) and left her bedroom such a pigsty, again, I grabbed the hammer and vented my frustrations on these hapless little bottle caps. One at a time, on a rug over a concrete floor, I laid them out and smashed them flat, first one side, then the other. My husband wanted to know what the ^%$@! noise was and my 13-year-old told him "Mom’s smashing bottle caps…" He simply grunted, she snickered and I kept hammering.
3. I had to pull the rug fibers out of the smashed edges of a few – kind of made me think what happens when you throw your jeans on real quick and zip up with no underwear – youch! I have an ex-husband who did that, so ripping out those fibers was sadistic therapy!
Now I had something I could respect: little wopper-jawed shaped disks with interesting bumps and hammer marks, something that had obediently submitted to my anger and ended up useful!
4. Next came the spray paint –I blasted them black, front and back, still not really knowing what they would turn into.
Because I have cats (or rather, cats have me), I carried them into the house to dry. I could imagine one of the silly buggers rolling onto the paper and coming away with black, metal dots in her fur. Funny image, but not with my bottle caps!
While they lay on the table drying, I spotted some vintage clipart images and old envelopes with handwriting. Hmmmm….. an idea is forming….
5. I grabbed fancy edged scissors and cut lots of little disks of images and snippets of handwriting and began gluing them down with decopage glue. After covering one side of each, I went to bed and had dreams of dozens of lovely charms draped from my fat, lovely neck!
Over the next days I glued images on both sides of the bottle caps and layered decoupage repeatedly, I think there’s at least four layers now. I lost count. I used Lennea’s awl to poke a hole in each. Aren’t they lovely?
At some point in this stretch of time the 13 year-old commented on how stupid my bottle cap charms were – I stuck my tongue out at her (this is a crucial step in the process). Later, I caught her examining them more closely, the cogs spinning in her little adolescent brain and just before leaving for Artiscape, I caught her rummaging through my lovely little charm stash and she asked me to save one for her! Hah!

Nora #1

Mine was the Purple/Blue/Gold polymer clay bead wrapped with wire & beads.
Condition your clay and mix the three colors together, be careful not to over mix. Roll it through your pasta machine on the thickest setting and cut in half and stack on top of each other. Then lay unmounted stamp, design up, place stacked clay on top and then lay an unmounted stamp, face down and brayer over it. Then I cut the shape with a small clay cutter, like a cookie cutter. Inserted the skrew to make hole through one end and baked according to manufacturers directions. After they were cooled, I coated them with Future Floor wax and allowed them to dry over night. Then I used 20 gauge wire and E-Beads and wrapped the wire with the beads around the polymer clay bead.

Nora Bussell
snowbirdnb@aol.com

# 18

I made my charm from shrink film. After cutting the shrink film to size, I hole-punched each end and sanded both sides. Then I lightly sponged brick, olive, and brown Distress inks on both sides. Afterwards I stamped both sides of the film with a weathered wood stamp and the flower/leaf stamps using StazOn ink. Next took a heat gun and shrunk the film. I colored the sides of the charm using the StazOn ink pad. Lastly I attached the jump ring, spiral wire, and bead to the charm and super-glued the copper dragonfly to the front.

oops

I forgot to say my charm was #5
Joanne

fused glass charm

My charm was the fused glass one. I got a kiln for Christmas and made my charms from small pieces of glass (mostly Wasser, but some Bulls eye), topped with smaller pieces of dichoic glass. I used earring findings to top them and put on jump rings and lobster claws (easier to move around with the lobster claws). - Joanne Thieme Huffman

#17 Susan Goodell

My charms are cut pieces of straw covered in lace with glue, then they are wrapped with wire and beads are added.

#7

My charms are polymer clay, pierced with an eyepin and then flattened, shaped, and baked. After the charms cooled, I used rubber stamps and pigment inks to stamp each charm, then embossed with clear or silver embossing powder. Finally I added glass beads and twisted the tail of the eyepin to an interesting shape. This is the first swap I've ever participated in, and I had a lot of fun.

I play with all sorts of artistic media. Polymer clay is the thing I do most often. Finding time to focus on these things is a big challenge.

Thanks to each of the Ladies of Charms, for your lovely, intriguing charms.

#20 Debbie Pine

These mini dominoes are colored with alcohol inks, then stamped with Staz-On and decorated with a swarovski crystal. The edges are trimmed with Krylon gold leaf pen. I've only done one charm swap before.. but they sure are fun! My other artisict hobbies include scrapbooking, mixed media collage and art journals. This pic is of another version that has more beads.

#12 Valerie Brown

I usually play with paper (: These are my first charm making attempts. Thank you to those who graciously swapped with me. The majority of my charms were glass pieces some wrapped in metal tape. Images and embellishments were added using embossing enamel.  I like to hang out at yahoo groups edm, Bookartz, Gluebots, or the Fat book sisters. Trading atcs with folks around the world is my new hobby. Some of my art making stuff can be found here :

Charm #19

I am a music lover (it's art, too) and I chose to base mine on guitar picks. I chose pink in honor of Breast Cancer month. I lost a good friend recently and have others who are in some stage of treatment or healing. I used old photos I got online to make my "rock stars". I am part Shawnee so the feather was there for something else that encompasses my total being. I love all the charms I received and enjoyed meeting the wonderful ladies who created such beautiful works of art.
Terri Ogburn

#3 Carol Kimball

The silver charm with the dragonfly is made from Precious Metal Clay (PMC) I used a small dragonfly rubber stamp for the impression in the clay before it was fired in a kiln. I chose a dragonfly as it is one of the symbols for Artiscape.I don't have any websites or blogs. I am a PMC instructor as well as a calligrapher.