Christmas Isn’t Here And I’m Already Making Valentines

I have two swaps coming up. One is for a Valentine Joujou charm exchange inspired by a workshop 10 of us took. We created a charm keeper jewelry, a necklace and a pair of earrings. The other exchange is an altered domino charm swap. The swap is not specifically for Valentines; however, I was thinking Valentines, so I made altered domino Valentine charms.

I’ll give you a quick description of how I altered the dominoes.

For the altered domino charm, I started out with wood dominoes. I drilled a hole at the top and bottom of the domino. I sanded the back of the domino and added a mulberry paper. I stamped a little gold heart in the background. I found a vintage image of a boy looking lovingly at a girl. I digitally colored and shrunk the image, then cut out the boy and the girl. I glued them onto my paper covered domino. I added a bit of glitter and a heart brad. I added gold leaf to the sides of the dominoes. I used the headpin wire-wrap technique to wire wrap a few beaded charms. I then added a loop at the top with a pearl bead attached and a loop at the bottom with 5 small beaded charms.

 

I’m continuing my work on the light bulb charms.  I added gold leaf hearts to the bulbs.  I have to make 8 charms.  I’ve started 9.  I still have some touch up to do on the charms you see above.  I have 6 more charms with hearts that need gold leaf as well.  I will be making hooks for the charms as well.

I feel a little strange creating Valentines when we haven’t even made it through Christmas yet.  In order to get my charms to my exchange partners in plenty of time for them to get good use out of them, I have to send them at the beginning of January.  I guess it’s just the way holiday crafting works.

Well I’m done crafting for a little while.  I need to get a few presents wrapped today.  I hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas Eve.