chimesblog

I’ve been drooling over some of these amazing statement necklaces that Anthropologie has been charging hundreds of dollars for … but would never spend that kind of money on something I could easily make myself.

I didn’t realize just how easy.

This necklace was cobbled together using some of my old jewelry and fabric scraps.  After picking the pieces, it took about 1.5 hours to assemble.

How’s that for resourceful?

So if you didn’t get that … it’s the guitar line from Beat It.  (duh)

Anywho, I’m participating in craftster.org’s Michael Jackson “We Love the Gloved One” swap. Yes.  Go ahead. Groan.

*insert groans here*

Good. Now that you’ve got that out of your system, prepare to be put in a State of Shock (yes, I am going to heavily sprinkle this post with song titles, now shush).

Okay, quickie info on this swap: it’s 5 points (I’m not going to explain points, but it’s basically 1 small item=1 point, medium=2, large=3, etc).  You have to craft enough stuff to add up to 5 points.  Also, I’m paired with a cool girl from Australia.  Great. Except I’m poor, so that limits what I can send because shipping is hella expensive.

Enter: crafts I would never dream of doing in a million years.  But they’re my For All Time favorites (okay, that was a stretch).

Note: none of these are actually FOR the swap. These are simply testing the medium to see what I can do.

MJ in the infamous Beat It jacket. Silhouette on shrink plastic made into a pendant for a necklace. Chain is vintage.

Okay. I admit. I actually saw the next thing on craftastrophe.net and HAD to make it myself. I thought to myself, man, what a great idea!  And yes. Craftastrophe.net is a blog about exactly what it sounds like it would be about. Crafty catastrophes — ie BAD crafts.  However, somebody on etsy sells these for $40 a pop! Crazy. I’ll make my own, thanks. The fabric for this costs about $3 a yard.  Cut, pin, stitch, stuff. Nothing Dangerous about it.  Done in 30 minutes. (next time I’ll measure a bit better though and possibly use a light interfacing to make the stitching better)

ET … moonwalk … home? Yeah. I’m going to revisit this pattern to make it less alien-like and more human (nature). It’s a 1.5 x 1 foot stuffie of — you guessed it (I hope anyway) — the one and only sequined glove.  I have no clue what I’m going to do with this thing, except for right now I’m gonna Keep it In the Closet.

… and of course, his favorite gesture.

That’s all for now. YES.  There will be more.  MUCH more.  I purchased a Thriller music box movement for the craft swap and realized I wouldn’t be able to send something big enough to hold it, so I’m going to be making my OWN shrine box (only not really a shrine, more or less a pretty music box) complete with a fimo MJ that will be mounted on one of those twirly ballerina things. Now I just gotta figure out how to get the twirly ballerina thing to do a triple twist and land on its toes …