Day 6 - Sunshine? Ship's Wheel?

For the past 6 days you have been following my Charm A Day challenge. Your emails have been so inspiring!!! Thank you! However, I'd like to tell you about how I got started. 

One day I was killing time at my local Jo-Ann's store. The cover of this book caught my attention.

So I bought it. For those of you who know me, you are in shock... right??? As a bookstore owner I can order any book, any time at wholesale. Why would I pay full price? Why??? Because I wanted to read this book NOW... not in a week... NOW! 

I drooled over each and every page and picture.  The authors, Peggy Kryzewski and Christine Hansen are charm goddesses! According to this book there were Art Charm SWAPS going on behind my back. All these wonderful little bundles of goodness were being shipped all over the world and I wasn't getting any!! So I grabbed my computer and started searching for Swaps. I landed on a new group forming on Yahoo... so I joined. It was weeks later that I found out the moderators were the very same authors I drooled over. Surprise!!!

I'm hooked! I love making and receiving charms. To check out where I get my inspiration... go to Peggy's blog: http://artandsoultoo.blogspot.com

and Christine's: http://www.christinehansen.com/

Better yet... JOIN US! Check us out at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ArtCharms/

On to Day 6...

It's been raining all day today. HUGE thunderstorms. Dark, dreary, muggy day. BUT... sunshine filled my heart and soul when I saw my reservations came through for a trip to Florida in November (Thank you Catherine and Dan for your timeshare). As I was making today's charm I was thinking... Sun, funky sun. My hands made a ship's wheel instead. Funny how I planned a totally different charm than what actually emerged. Art has a way of doing that :-)

I hope your days are just as challenging.

Thanks for looking!

Deb

Day 5 Flower Charm

It's day 5 of making a Charm A Day... and I haven't even begun to sweat. In honor of my new job at Michael's a friend bought me flowers... well actually a plant with flowers on it. So... my charm today is a flower made of buttons, beads, and wire. It looks much better in real life, but you get the idea.

Day 4 - Tillie Charm

Day 4 of the 365 days of making a Charm A Day. I still find the challenge fun. It seems to give me 'permission' to craft after dinner instead of cleaning, doing laundry, getting ready for the next day, etc.

I sold a few pewter Tillie Charms on my etsy shop today... so I thought it was time to play around with the same image except using polymer clay and a water slip transfer technique. All in all things went well, however the directions called for a film of liquid clay to cover the image for durability... and THAT layer rippled. UGH!! Up to that point the images were clear and strong. Knowing that the image should be protected some how... liquid clay is NOT the answer. Next week I'll try using resin.

Any way... here's the final charm:

Day 3 Father's Day Tie

I just couldn't resist making a tie... out of a tie for Father's Day.

As simple as this looks... it took longer than I thought it would... with a lot of 'trial and error'. A total of 4 attempts finally gave me the charm I wanted.

Day 2 - Bird's Nest

I love the way this charm turned out. It was a little rough on the fingers, but worth the effort.

I found a bird feather on the beach the other day... then I saw a photo of a bird nest charm another 'art charmer' made and was inspired to make this charm. 

It was a little rough on the fingers, but worth the effort.

I'm baaackkkkk!

Well... I wasn't off the blog-o-sphere for long, now was I??? I realized that blogging was fun... and now I have a REASON to blog... I've decided to make a CHARM A DAY for the next 365 days. Yup... all 365 of them. I wish I could say that it was my idea... but no. I had been thinking about the idea for a while now... but last night's Art Charm Chat brought it back up again. Some one mentioned it, my brain clicked, and here I am.

My goal is to make one charm everyday. Using all different techniques and skill sets. It's a way for me to expand creatively and have cute little charms as a result. I really enjoy making these little critters. They're addictive.

Some will have a story behind them, and with posting and journaling I should be able to look back in a year in awe at all I have accomplished. I am certain that some will be easy little nothing pieces... but don't we all have days like that???

To start... here is my very first charm....  

I spent the day at the Township Public Works office making arrangements for someone (besides me) to assist my mom with her weekly trash cans. So... I made an origami heart charm out of junk mail. Day one, COMPLETE.

Posting daily might be too cumbersome, so if you want to follow my progress I would suggest checking in once a week.

Feel free to post comments and cheer me on!!!