Thursday, January 12, 2012

Scrabble Tile Jewelry

I spent a very relaxing afternoon with two friends making jewelry with wooden scrabble tiles and assorted collage materials.  K. made 6 tiles with different coloured Queen Elizabeth postage stamps.  Z. made some tiles with small maps and boats. (sorry no pics!)
 We started with a kit purchased from Pick Your Plum - a daily "buy it now" website that sells craft supplies and accessories.  Each kit came with 6 wooden tiles and 6 brass bezels.  You have to sign up and they'll send you an email with the daily deal. 
 I cut images from art stickers, stamps, dictionaries and books and glued them on the tiles with glossy accents adhesive.  then more adhesive on top - to create that glossy look.  My friend had some coloured tubes as well - used to colour the blue fish above and the green background for the bird.
It was too much fun to stop after we'd completed our 6 tiles - so i created 5 more using slightly smaller scrabble tiles.  Each tile got two or three coats of adhesive so that it was slightly raised. Some of these will become jewelry - some can just be used as embellishment in a mixed media art project.
 Here's how i created jewelry out of some of the tiles.  Here i added some beads and metal findings and threaded it on waxed linen thread.
 Here i used some gunmetal ball chain to make a long pendant.  This tile also has a little raised flower in the corner.
 Here i used a thick black cording to create a choker length necklace that can be adjusted by sliding the knots along the cord.  it took some trial and error to tie the knots right - but it works perfectly!
 This actually a little bracelet on a brass coloured chain.
 This is an experiment - but i used some soft wire to create a necklace with a simple clasp.  Probably TOO soft - they make wire specifically for this type of jewelry.  But i didn't have any handy!  BTW - this was made with a Columbian postage stamp with a volcano image - i added the word 'foreboding'.
And finally my favorite - also on a thick black leather cord with the knotted adjustable ends.  My pretty red head with the word 'beloved' cut from a dictionary.