To Boldly Go...

All my previous Word Pendants have had a short phrase either indirectly referring to the kaleidoscoped image (or the original photo) or inspired by it in some way. When I found the word "boldly" in one of the books I was recycling, the iconic phrase from Star Trek*, "to boldly go" popped into my head, and I decided to use it, and hunted up the other two words.

It's a good phrase anyway, so even if a Trek fan doesn't snatch it up, surely someone can appreciate the idea.

*The full phrase is (of course): "Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its 5-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."

"Word" Pendants

My "word" pendants are made with small versions of the kaleidoscoped photos, plus an inch-square piece, made with a pieced background of pastel chalk and words clipped from recycled books. Each is unique.

These are part of what I've been up to for the "30 Days of Creativity" challenge.

Busy, in Spite of a Cold

Felt beads are easy to make, and rather entertaining. Here's the first round I've done and finished with the boiling water/ice water baths: 

The three in the foreground are purple, green and yellow - Mardi Gras colors. Those I made for a friend. The ones behind are orange, green and yellow. I need some black roving!

These are the first paper beads. Orange cardstock, two with black Sharpie on the edges, and painted over with Halloween nail polish, with black and orange glitter.

The nail polish worked really well, even if a bit stinky. I rolled them on those rattan sticks from an empty oil diffuser, so maybe the residual scent from the sticks will permeate the beads, too.

And THIS is the first of my kaleidoscope pendants. Made with Memory Glass and the coordinating frame, it's one of my kaleidoscopic photos reduced to 1.5x1.5" - small! But the 2x2" frames seemed big to use as a pendant, so I went with these, and the 1x3" (microscope slide) size. 
All in all, I am quite pleased with the results. If I wasn't feeling so crappy, I'd be running the bottom ones to a friend of mine who is vending this weekend; she said she'd take whatever I had and try to sell it for me. I have 5x7" prints to mat, and and waiting for the next batch of greeting cards to get here. The website's all set up, but still under construction.

Pendants Update

As I was putting head pins in one of the wooden pendants I made, I learned something unfortunate: the pretty shiny gloss from the Glossy accents™ glaze got very cloudy from my handling it. Apparently, it's not going to be appropriate for jewelry if that's what a few minutes in my (clean!) hands does. I suppose the next experiment will be with brushing on resin and seeing if it will do the job without running off the sides. I'm so bummed. I'm glad it was one of my least favorite of the ones that turned out well. I may be able to "save" the others with a layer of resin on them. I've also been looking into using glass slides to make pendants, but I don't know how much of a pain the soldering will be. I have a few ideas that may or may not pan out, but I am having some trouble finding the supplies I need. It may come down to scrapping the whole thing, buying the silver bezels from Rio Grande and just doing that.

Kaleidoscopic Pendants

I saw someone else's work on Etsy, and was inspired to try my hand and my kaleidoscoped images. I got a variety of materials to adhere the reduced kaleidoscopes to, and did the first batch last night:

The three large ones were hammered-look cheap metal pendants that cost 49¢ on clearance, the others are wooden beads, flattened ovals, about an inch long. Those were $2 for the strand. I used Inkssenstials Glossy Accents to seal the image on the bead after I glued them down. The images are printed on photo paper, then sealed with matte sealant (both sides) so the ink jet inks wouldn't run.

I am quite pleased with my first attempt. There are a few small air bubbles in the wooden pendants and some designs worked better than others, but they came out beautifully for never having done this before.