Zipper pulls . . . and a new camera!

Today I finally received my new digital camera. Yippee! It has all kinds of buttons and knobs and dials and is pretty intimidating. Basically I have no idea how to use it. Well, I guess I shouldn't say no idea. I did figure out how to charge and insert the battery, insert the memory card, attach the neck strap, attach the lens, turn it on and take a few test shots. But that doesn't exactly take full advantage of all the camera's fancy capabilities. I guess I'll have to do a lot of reading, learn some new acronyms and just take plenty of pictures.

I did get some practice taking pictures of my crafty project for today. I needed to make a few zipper pulls -- which I have decided are about as close as I can get to the boy equivalent of hair barrettes -- for my cousin's birthday. Last time I used Shrinky Dinks to make zipper pulls (see Zipper pulls post), and it worked well, but I wanted to try something different this time. That's when I remembered that I have some flattened bottle caps I bought at the Stamp Expo to use as card embellishments. So this is what I came up with:

Supplies: Flattened bottle caps, turtle and pirate chick stamps (DeNami Design), Whisper White card stock, Jet Black StazOn ink, permanent markers, 1" circle punch, Crystal Effects, paper piercer, 9 mm jump rings, 1" lanyard hooks

I think they turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself (which I guess I just did). My first plan when making these was to stamp the images directly on the bottle caps, which were already white when I purchased them, and then color them with permanent markers. The stamping part was fine, but when I started to color, the markers reacted with the ink and smeared the stamped image. Not cool.

On to Plan B. The inner part of the bottle cap is about 1" in diameter, so I stamped and colored the images on Whisper White card stock and then punched them out with a 1" circle punch. I put a thin layer of Crystal Effects on the bottle caps, adhered the punched circles and then coated the images with a thicker layer, making sure to cover all the edges of the card stock so they don't come loose. Then it's just a matter of waiting for everything to dry.

To add the lanyards, I used a paper piercer to punch a hole in the edge of the bottle cap. (Be sure to use an old paper piercer so it isn't ruined with the metal; it does take a little muscle to make the hole.) Then I slipped a jump ring through the hole and attached the lanyard hook. Really pretty simple.

Thanks for stopping by!