make your own jewelry with photos and paper

So many great ideas for Christmas, so little time! I have a long list of posts I hope to share with you before the holidays are over, so watch for multiple posts per day for the next week!

This one has to be the quickest and easiest gift I've ever put together. I was looking for simple Christmas gift ideas for the ladies I work with at church, and I had seen a friend's necklace that had the 2011 theme for our youth group that I wanted to make. I hadn't been able to find really nice quality pendants anywhere locally, so I contacted one of our fabulous sponsors, PhotoJewelryMaking.com, to see what they could recommend. They sent me several different options to try out and share with you. I ended up making several gifts, then purchasing the supplies for the necklace for my church friends so we could get together in January and make them together! (We have waaay to much fun crafting together.) So here are a few ideas for seriously EASY Christmas gifts, LDS YW 2011 theme gifts, craft day with your friends, or just a necklace for yourself!

This piece used the Copper Beaded Edge Circle Pendant with the Krystal Clear-Itz Glass small round glass tile. It's kind of hard to tell from the picture, but it's a domed glass piece and it is so pretty! It magnifies the wording and makes it look more expensive than it really is. But I have to tell you the most amazing part. It might look easy to type up and size the wording for a necklace like this, but it probably would've taken me about an hour and a lot of trial and error to get the size exactly right for the pendant. I'm pretty good in Photoshop, but it still takes me time. So I tried their EZ Photo Resizer Software and was SO impressed! All you do is save your text (or photo for photo jewelry) as a JPEG file, open it in the software, and put in your jewelry piece's measurement (which they provide on the Web site and packing list). Then you can crop it to fit exactly. I printed these off and punched them with my 1" circle punch, used the Instant Seal-Itz photo strips to stick my glass tile over it, and super glued it to the pendant. Voila! Five minute necklace.


I did add a couple of other things to it, as you can see. The Double-Sided rectangular pendants are even easier to make. They can stand alone, or you can pair them with another pendant like I did. Each rectangular pendant has a plastic sleeve that slips out of the pendant. You open up the little folder, place your photo or patterned paper or text inside, and slide it back in the pendant. Two-minute pendant! And they're double-sided, so you can put different papers on each side, or two photos, or text and paper, or paper and a photo. . .you get the idea. I also added a little flower charm (by Making Memories' Vintage Groove jewelry line). And when you get bored with it, it only takes 2 minutes to change it to a whole new piece of jewelry!

This one features the Six B's from Gordon B. Hinckley on the back.


Another unbelievably easy Double-Sided pendant with charm (also by Making Memories' Vintage Groove jewelry line). I put a different paper on the back so I could easily flip it around for another outfit.



Here's another version of the LDS Youth 2011 theme. I used the Krystal Clear-Itz Bottle Cap Covers that you can just stick on top of your photo/text/patterned paper. One-minute pendant. I think we have a winner! These are great for bottle cap magnets and pendants, too (wish I would've had those when I did my bottle cap magnet class a while ago!).


They also sell resin kits if you want to try that. Liquid resin is poured over the top of your photo or patterned paper and allowed to dry 24-72 hours. It sets hard and clear. I made a couple of little pendants with the resin and they turned out great. My favorite part about their resin kit is the amazing instructions! They give you step-by-step with tons of tips and tricks to make your resin pendants turn out beautifully. I've used it before, but I always get nervous when I do it--there are a lot of specific steps that I'm always afraid I'm going to mess up! But they made it really easy. These two pendants were actually made with the Bracelet Making Links, because I wanted to be able to hang a charm or jewel from the bottom of it. But they'd make really cute bracelets, too!



If you're too scared to try resin (or just aren't patient enough to wait for it to dry like me!), you will be amazed at how awesome the Krystal Clear-Itz look. I compared them to the pendants I did with resin and couldn't tell the difference. But they only took a few seconds to mount, and I didn't have to worry about smudging them, or having air bubbles show up, etc. This is the way to go if you ask me! There are also square glass tiles that look really professional, too.

By the way, look how pretty this pendant is on the back!


There are also Krystal Clear-Itz stickers to fit in the Keychains, which are great gifts for grandparents or guys.


Of course we love all our sponsors because they keep our blog going, but I really love it when I can say first hand how awesome a sponsor is. Love, love, love PhotoJewelryMaking.com. At first I wasn't sure I would use their stuff because I wasn't as interested in the photo jewelry, but when I starting thinking of all the other possibilities with patterned paper and text, I was sold. And I used their 10% off coupon this month to make mini kits for my January craft night with my friends! You can use it too, just enter gift10 at checkout!