Jewelry Alphabet Letters

 Welcome!

Found on eBay

I’m so happy you’re here!

Today I want to combine a few of my favorite things into one blog -

1. Jewelry

2. Alphabets

3. Anything Sparkly

4. Anything Crafty

Let’s get started with an alphabet made up entirely of old, discarded jewelry.

Elo 7

B Juliana Leo

To make your own monogram, start with a papier-mâché letter. My local crafts stores have these.

Paint it a base color. Pick a neutral that will show off the sparkly jewelry you will be adding.

Or

Choose a color in your decorating palette.

Etsy

Michelle Harisson, Etsy

Gather a LOT of broken and discarded jewelry pieces. You can many times find bags of jewelry at thrift stores for a small amount of $$.

Ask friends and family to save their old jewelry for you also.

eBay

This artist chose to mount their work onto a piece of lace, stretched in a frame.

Start laying your jewelry pieces out until you get an arrangement that pleases you. The better looking ones I have seen do not skimp on the amount of jewelry you use to fill the design out.

To make your design stand out, try to collect jewelry in one color family.
For instance, all warm oranges and yellows, or all cool blues.

Leslie Martin

Ms. Martin chose to use Red and its complimentary color of Green.
If you cannot find the letter you want in papier-mâché you can draw your letter onto a simple piece of linen. After finishing you may frame it as shown above.

Teresa Lester, Pinterest

I love the inclusion of a watch face in the above sample.

This next one has used alphabet beads and small charms to fill out spaces in the letter.

STF, Pinterest

Pinterest

Don’t you love the pink frou-frou pin at the end of that ‘J’?
Don’t be afraid to go outside the lines, just keep the basic shape of your letter intact.

Etsy

Once you have an arrangement you like, get out the glue!

My favorite glue is Aleene’s Tacky Glue in the gold bottle.

Etsy

Juhana Begum, Pinterest

Take your time and glue down one piece at a time. You can use binder clips or clothespins to help hold some pieces in place. I have even used small plastic bottles to help prop up pieces until the glue is dry enough on its own.

Etsy

Take a look at the letter ‘O’. It uses some great design principles that are good to know.

First, use 3 or 5 items that are similar. The ‘O’ has large pearl jewelry for this.

They are evenly spaced out without being rigid in placement.

Bobbi Wolf, Pinterest

Bobbi Wolf has used another good design principle - choose something to ‘tie’ it all together. You want the uniqueness of each piece of jewelry, but you also need a cohesiveness to make it pleasing. In the letter ‘P’ it is the chain that outlines the piece. Using the string of pearls on part of it does not detract but still adds to the overall feel of ‘this belongs together’.

I couldn’t find a ‘Q’ so this is my substitute.

Mary Garrett, Pinterest

Your brain likes to make sense of things. Using a chain, or perhaps small beads to fill in gaps, or a repeating theme such as white buttons makes your brain happy!

Principle #3- symmetry is ok too! In the ‘Q’ the artist used 4 large pieces to anchor the design, spaced evenly.

Elo 7

Gemsandjewelsbyangie, Etsy 

In the letter ‘R’ a pretty brooch has been used as a focal piece, almost like a big bow, at the top corner. In the letter ‘S’ the focal piece is the large owl, placed at the end of the S stroke. Both work!

Etsy

Grandmajosworkshop

I recommend, by the way, Tacky glue and NOT a hot glue gun. Hot glue leaves those ugly strings unless you are a real pro using it (I am not!). Costume jewelry is made from a variety of materials. Not all of them may be compatible with hot glue. Use a low temp glue gun? You could, but you have to be exact in your placement.

I like the option of sliding my pieces around a bit to fit better.

Sonya Lovely-Bagley

Desiree Weinandt, Pinterest

‘X’ and ‘Z’ are not popular letters to be found in a Craft store, so I will end with the letter ‘Y’.

Etsy

I do hope you try this beautiful craft. Send me photos!

‘Til next time,

inkspired

Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button?

 

Courtesy Button Lovers, Pinterest

Buttons!

What would we do without them?

We sew them on to keep things closed,

or to keep things open.

We add them to our clothing for fashion. 

We use them in our home decorations.

We give them to children to play with, or to learn basic skills.

We make them into jewelry.

Oh what a wonderful thing -

Buttons!

In Walt Disney’s animated movie 

‘Alice in Wonderland’

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum ask if Alice wants to play “Button, Button”?

We dye them to all the colors of the rainbow.

We make them out of plastic, horn, bone, twigs, metal, and precious gems.

Buttons made from coconuts 

Humans have been in love with buttons for a very long time.

. E stepp N.

In fact, for a very long time!

The oldest button found so far is one made of shell from 7000 BCE in Pakistan.

Feel free to count those zeroes again!

Archeologists found more discs with holes drilled in them made from ivory, clay, stone and bone. These dated back to 4000 - 5000 BCE.

Recyclart

In ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ 

Willy references the game “button, button”.

Being the crafty person I am, I became curious about what others were creating with their buttons, besides utilitarian uses?

Handmade by Taylor Friese

Is it anything I would like to do? Is it anything I think I would like to teach at my local Senior Center?

Courtesy Carol Cahill, Pinterest

Well, I found a plethora of button projects! Let’s look at just a few.

The first 2 fall into the category of 

‘Useful objects’

Courtesy Leslie Price, Pinterest

Courtesy Crafts and Creativity 

What cute ideas to put in your sewing/craft area! They are both so simple I’m not even going to give directions.

In season 2 of ‘Dexter’s Laboratory’ Dee Dee says “Button, button, who’s got the button?” before pressing a red button to take off in a hovercraft.

Many of the button crafts I have to show you don’t even have to know how to sew.

Here’s another one that only needs glue:

Courtesy StylesatLife

You could make this with anyone’s color scheme and give as a charming gift.

Wouldn’t it be great filled with jelly beans?

Another no-sew project:

I found many postings of this on Pinterest; no idea of original idea.

I would add a backing cut slightly smaller than the finished coaster. You could use stiffened fabric, leather scraps, thin cork sheets…

The title of the Twilight Zone episode ‘Button, Button’ is a reference to the childhood game.

Next I have a few simple ornaments:

Dana; Sara Srogi; Pinterest

Glue some popsicle sticks together for the base. (Do this on wax paper to prevent messes on your table!) Then glue on different sizes of buttons. Add thread or ribbon for a hanger.

A simple craft for young ones to do also.

firefliesandmudpies.com

There is a tutorial for this, but really you just need buttons, glue, ribbon for hanging and a stiffened piece of felt for the base. 

Budget idea: use poster board or shirt insert cardboard for the base instead.

Charlotte Prow; Pinterest 

You will need buttons, glue, scraps of felt and an old plaid scarf and twine to make the snowman ornament.

Are you in love with buttons yet?

Courtesy Carol Cahill; Pinterest

In ‘Lost in Space’ Season 2, Episode ‘The Curse of Cousin Smith’ Major West refers to the ‘old childhood game of button, button, who has the button

I found so many wonderful

 ideas of how to use buttons in your card making. Let’s start with Christmas cards. Here are a wfe :

Ellen Roberts 

Canadian Living

Scrapbook.com

Next are a few general cards wit:

Wordpress.com

Talita Rodrigues Nunes

H.Skelly for Splitcoaststampers Community; Pinterest

…and 2 more:

KEA

Archzine.net

There are many different styles of button flowers out there.

These are just a couple:

The Shabby Tree

Becky Crockett

Here is a diagram to help you make the above button flowers:

Julie Fitzgerald posted this on Pinterest 

Crochet, anyone?

Love Crochet 

Buttons and felt seem to go 

together so well:

chocolatecupcake 

Not On The High Street

Instructables

You could easily make these into pins or magnets.

In ‘Little Men’ by Louisa May Alcott (published 1871) the Plumfield children reference playing ‘Button, button, who’s got the button?’

So what is this game/nursery rhyme I keepreferring to?to?

It’s a children’s game that has existed well before 1871 (see above).

to play:

Children stand in a circle with 1 in the center. They all hold out their hands, palms up and next to each other. The ‘it’ player has a button. ‘It’ goes around the circle and pretends to put the button in each child’s hands. ‘It does drop it into one child’s hands, but everyone pretends they have it. Then the first child guesses who might have the button.

“Button, button, who has the button? Is it ____?”

You go around the circle with each child having a turn, until the real button holder is guessed. The child who guesses correctly is the new ‘it’.

Kathy Spitsen, Pinterest

Let’s get fashionable with our buttons!

Pinterest

If you can do jump rings you could use this same idea and make a necklace.

Here’s a project that takes embroidery thread and beads:

Patti Bishop posted this on Pinterest

Is your button not quite the right color?

Here’s a clever trick to custom paint wood buttons:

Threads magazine

I love this next fashion statement:

The credits for this are in Cyrillic. Sorry.

I have got to try this one.

Hot glue gun and Aleene’s Tacky glue here I come!

Okay blogspot has gone haywire on me and is doing really weird things with punctuation

and spacing GAAAhhhhhh

Time to stop!

Til next time

inkspired

I keep trying to fix the problem but have found no solution yet that works. I am so sorry for the messy look on this. It’s not how I typed it, truly!

😢 😭 😡