Whip It Up Wednesday: Vintage Style Frame Charms

If you're a liker on H&H's Facebook Page you might have noticed a little teaser I posted a while back ...

Well, now I'm finally going to share with you how I made them! Whoo!

First off, here was my original inspiration:

I've been stashing these cards away for years (as any normal crafter does, right?!) - they came from inside a photo album, and I couldn't possibly throw them away! 

What I used:

* Patterned cardboard  (for background)

* Metal frame charm

* Scrapbook key charm

* Tiny Swarovski crystals

* Moon & Sun Glaze

(You can use Dimensional Magic, Diamond glaze, etc.. Anything similar will do!)

What to do:

Cut a small rectangle of your patterned backing so that it will fit inside your metal frame charm. I cut out a piece with a cute little blossom on it.

If you need to, you can protect your cardboard with Microglaze at this stage so that the print doesn't run when you put the glaze over it. I didn't and it worked fine, but if you drew or printed something out yourself you probably should! 

If your key charm has a loop on the top (like mine did) use some pliers or cutters to bend or cut it off. I actually couldn't cut mine, so I bent it backwards and forwards until I could pull it off ;) If you want, use a file to take the sharp edges off.

Put your backing piece inside the metal frame charm. It's a good idea to actually glue it in :) You can use a bit of glaze between the frame and cardboard to attach it.

Lay out all of your other embellishments inside your frame. You'll notice that I also cut the word "spring" out from my cardboard pieces and included that - looks pretty cute, huh? 

Make sure you place this on a flat surface so the glaze is less likely to run, and ideally on a scrap piece of fabric. This way, if the glaze overflows or seeps you can easily peel it off the fabric when it's dry, instead of it sticking permanently to your work surface!

Pipe your glaze around the inside of your frame edges first, then fill towards the centre. Use a pin to pop any bubbles that might appear, or push the bubbles to the edges so you can remove them.

Let this dry until it's clear. With the glaze I used, it lost "body" when it dried, so I simply kept letting it dry then adding a new layer until I was happy with the final product :)

Now just to turn them into pretty jewellery for the store! :D