Monday, April 19, 2010

Down where the Sasquatch hide....

Beauty of a day!  A seven year old birthday party.  Rain.  Sun.  Ahhhh, the Northwest.  Just missing a Sasquatch sighting..... Ha! 

I have been wanting to show y'all these lovely badges I made for my Juji (Julie for her 40th!) and for Jasper (for his 7th!).  So so easy yet quite a statement!  Here are some photos below.  I wish I knew how to do a little tutorial for you in case you want to make yourself a badge.  I will try to explain below.  It is really, soooo easy!
Julie's Birthday Badge!

Jasper's 7th Birthday badge!

The back of Julie's badge.

Front and back of Jasper's.

I was able to purchase several of these green rimmed milk bottle caps from the Queen of Tarte last time she was in town.  She was doing a show in Bothell and there was not a lot to drool over from other vendors but Q.O.T. had these and Kathy and I were drawn to them.  Numbers were already printed on them, just like Jasper's 7, and I instantly had the idea for his birthday badge.  The one I made for Julie has a number under it too but I had to cover it since none of the numbers were 40! 

The first thing I did was take some of my many rolls of crepe paper and started pinching and gathering them and just hand forming them into a circle shape until it looked ruffley.  Then I started on the next color or row, and so on.  Once I had what I wanted, I just used white glue to begin adhering the crimped, ruffled, pinched, circular shaped crepe "wreaths" to the back of the bottle cap.  I just overlapped the crepe where it met in a circle shape.  The caps are a kind of waxy, papery like thing but the white glue seemed to work to adhere it all together. 

Then I had to decide what kind of ribbons I wanted hanging down from the badge.  I have a massive collection of ribbon, vintage and new.  I also have a ton of seam binding, edging, ric rac, etc.  The green "ribbons" I used here are actually like hem tape that you might use to cover a hem on the inside of a garment.  Its cotton and very stretchy and I have several rolls of it so this was a good way to use some up.  I just decided on how I wanted to layer them and then trimmed the ends to make points.  You make the points by folding the ribbon in half length wise and then cut a 'V' shape from the fold to the outer edge.  You can make the points as long or as blunt as you like, depending on how long your 'V' is.  Once I have my layers of dangling ribbon situated, I glue them all at the same time and together, to the back of the ruffley crepe lined bottle cap, on the back.  You can make them hang straight down or flare them at a slight angle.  You could also just do one strand of ribbons or several strands! 

To cover up all the glue, ribbon ends and crepe circles on the back of the badge, I cut out a nice little circle of wool felt, with my pinking shears so it has a 'ruffley' edge too, and glue it on the back.  BEFORE I glue it on though, I hand sew a pin to the felt so I have a way to attach it to my clothes or wherever once its all dry and ready to wear.  I have several leftover early entry badges from The Sandpoint Design and Antique Market so I just detached the safety pin part from the plastic and used the pin to sew to the felt.  There are several types of pin backs at the craft store so you just have to choose what works best for you.  Once the pin is attached to the felt, THEN I glue it to the badge back.  Voila!  You are pretty much done!  You just have to wait for the glue to dry and then wear your badge or give it away!

Here is my sweet Julie with her Birthday badge:

Here is tired Jasper, on his birthday, after horseback riding in the desert, but still wearing his Birthday badge:

Oh!  I almost forgot to mention!  Look at this close up of Julie's badge.  You will notice the background behind the 40.  I used the inside of a Yogi tea box!
I did this specifically for Julie because it reminded me of the amazing henna work she does.  I am tellin' ya, this woman is a master!  Getting a henna blessing from Julie is one of my most favorite things to do when we are together.  It is amazing art that stays with me for days and slowly fades as the time since our last meeting grows.  I need to scan the photos I have of Julie's henna work and do another whole post just on that!  The 40 is just stick on numbers that I glued down and sprayed matte varnish over to help hold them on.

Here's to art, craft, milk caps and crepe paper!
Go make art!

1 comment:

  1. These are wonderful! I've always thought the inside of those tea boxes were totally underappreciated. I'm glad you found a way to display their beauty!

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