Thursday, January 6, 2011

First Pancake Rule

Did you ever notice that the first pancake of the batch never comes out quite right? It's still edible... just a little burnt, or dry.  If you stick it on the bottom of the stack no one will notice, but you know it's there. Well... the same is true when crafting.

I finished my charms for the first swap I ever joined. While looking them over I was amused to stumble across the 'first pancake'. Can you pick out which one it is?


Here is a quick overview of how I made my charms. My last post showed me making paper beads from a magazine... watch the fun continue!



 The beads were coated with a water resistant sealer and stuck in a styrofoam cone to dry.








Next was to cover a small rectangle of balsa wood with vintage sheet music... seal and dry... then sand, sand, sand.











Since this is a Valentine swap I punched out teeny tiny hearts from the same paper as the beads and glued them to the back of the wooden rectangle.



Now it's time to combine the pieces. Adding pearl beads I wire wrapped the paper beads to to the wooden base. Last step... glue on the bail (shaped like a heart)... and TA DAH... my first ever charms!!


These were all new techniques for me... so a real learning experience. The most important lesson I learned was to only do a few charms at a time... that way you can tweak your technique as you go along.

This charm swap is way too much fun!! The next swap is using Origami Paper... again, not something I'm used to using in my crafts. My design is not finalized yet, but I have a bunch of ideas swimming around in my head. After that, the third swap is to use copper and green in a charm. I am so excited for this one as I already have a design idea and all of the supplies... but first I have to trudge through the Origami Paper one.

By the way... in case you were wondering... the First Pancake Rule works for children too :-)

10 comments:

  1. Oh Goodie! These make me glad I signed up for that swap. Love your idea and thanks for showing us how you made them. Good job. - Martha Rose

    ReplyDelete
  2. These are wonderful. And I don't detect any first pancake effect at all.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh, great job. Now I wish I had joined in on this swap. Can't wait to see what you come up with for the other two.

    ReplyDelete
  4. These are wonderful--so glad I'll be getting one! Don't notice any '1st pancakes' :)
    ......but that reminds me of an Erma Brombeck (an I dating myself?) quote...something like 'raising kids is like making pancakes--you should throw out the first one'--funny but not really true. My first is a keeper...and now she's having her first!!

    @Dana--what????you didn't sign up????

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi
    You didn't leave an email so I thought I would try to contact you here....you won my scrap giveaway!:) Let me know what your address is and I'll get the scraps...and a little surprise...in the mail asap!:)

    Thanks for visiting my blog!
    dg

    ReplyDelete
  6. I have no idea which one is the pancake! I am here because of the Follow My Blog swap. I really like your blog. Your crafts are amazing! I do not envy you the snow. judee

    ReplyDelete
  7. I REALLY like these a lot!!

    -Zefaniya (from swapbot)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oh! So lovely! And thanks for provinding the how too as well. I'm here from Swap-bot, and I really enjoyed this post. Look forward to reading mroe in the future. :)
    (P.S. My swapbot name is skuldintape)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hmmm...pancake rule...and it works with children you say? I only had one! LOL

    For me--it's the last batch that comes out just not right.

    Love the charms--such amazing talent and I'm learning new techniques as well!

    ReplyDelete