Washer Pendant

Yesterday I visited Lowe's, one of my favorite places to get craft supplies. The friendly sales people, clean isles, low prices......aaahhhh, heaven! At one of the isles I found these roud rings called washers. I had seen an episode, in Creative Juice, where Cathie Filian made pendants out of these washers. In person, she's just as she comes off on TV, very sweet and friendly.

I had been wanting to try this project out for the longest time and finally I did it today. I actually started this project yesterday since you need to let it dry 24 hours. They came out very nice, you would never know they are washers from the hardware store.

Here's what you need from left to right: glue, paper glaze, craft blade, pen, scissors, washers (they come in a variety of sizes, pick the size you'd like to make), bead, necklace closures (toggle), leather cording (or ribbon) and some pretty paper. You can find all these supplies at Michael's except for the washers, those you can find at your local hardware store. Make sure the washer are zinc plated.

This is the paper I'm using. It's so pretty. It's gift wrap paper but it's very thick. I got it at Little Tokyo in down town Los Angeles. It's important that you use a paper that has been printed in a laser copy machine so the colors won't run. Decorative scrapbook paper would be perfect for this project. Take it to your nearest copy shop (Kinko's) to copy it in their laser machines.

You'll find that the next few steps are really easy. First, take the washer and trace all around on the inside and outside with your pen. Make sure you trace on the back side of the paper.

Next, cut out the circle, use your craft blade to cut inside the circle, use a self adhesive mat under the paper so you don't damage your table.

It makes your whole life easier if you cut the inside circle out first, then cut the outside with scissors.

Next, glue the cut out to the washer with a craft glue stick.

Take your paper glaze and first, add a string of glaze all around the washer

After the end of the washer has been filled, go ahead and work yourself in towards the center.

You can use a skewer to spread the glaze but be careful with this step because it can create air bubbles. If you handle the glaze carefully, you shouldn't get any air bubbles in your work.

Once it's all filled in with the glaze, it's going to look like this (see pic). Let this dry for about 24 hours.

Add a toggle to your ends to secure. If you use ribbon, there's no need for a toggle since you can just tie the ribbon ends together and make a bow.

I ended up make two. On one I added a pretty bead down the center with 20 guage jewelry wire that you can get at Michael's. Check out the three pictures below of the finished pendants.