I am super lucky with the Thrift Stores in my area. A Literal gold mine for a crafter!
One thing I keep my eyes open for are these grab bags they put together with broken, or just ugly old jewelry - a lot of it is clearly 1980s, but some of it is just old clip on earrings that people don't wear anymore, or broken chains, or a necklace that's missing one little gem in it..
And it's brilliant because they organize these bags according to colour or metal type - so I will often get the gold and silver bags because there's just so much I can do with the metallic pieces! Sometimes it's charms that I add to a Santa Sack, or an old earring I can turn into a necklace for a Harriet Doll..sometimes I spray paint them, but I digress..
This post is regarding some brooches I gathered together, with the sole intention of remaking them into spooky brooches for these fall pumpkin dolls I had made. Looking for the pattern? This one can be purchased here
So admittedly, the owl clock necklace in the top corner was not quite broken, but is anyone going to wear that?? I wanted an aged clock face to match my aesthetic that I could use on a doll, so I intentionally did break the glass over the face so I could work with it!
The rest of them came like they are here, and you can see how pretty they are so of COURSE I want to use them!!
Enter Dimensional Magic. I discovered this amazing stuff through making the Steampunk Crows - the pattern called for Dimensional Magic for making the eye glass, and I had never used it before. I couldn't believe how cool a product it is!
Now, it's not cheap, but so far I have found the best price is at Michaels, and if you apply the weekly coupon to your purchase, it saves! And you don't need a lot. I have some other ideas on how to use it for doll making, so it's on my list for a future post.
So the first step (after acquiring my jewelry pieces), was to use the internet to find creepy old photos. I think my search term actually was "spooky vintage photographs" - so I ended up with a bunch of images appearing on the screen. I just right clicked on ones I liked and saved to my computer. I then measured each brooch so I knew how big my final images needed to be.
In Canva, I created little frames that were the size I needed for my brooches, and then overlaid the images. See the white circles/ovals? Those are the frames I made in Canva - I just coloured them white so I could see them over the dark photos.
From there I just had to crop them down to a size that would fit my brooches! Once I was happy with the sizing, I took a piece of 65 lb weight card stock (this will depend on your printer. That is the safest, thickest card stock I can feed into my printer, but that will vary.
I printed my images, and then cut them out around the frames so I had the exact sizes I needed for my brooches. I did make a few extras because I mean, sometimes things don't come out perfectly the first time so I wanted some wiggle room with this project!
Next, I just used a glue gun to glue each image in it's opening on the brooch. Now,
it's important that the image is sitting RECESSED in the opening, as when you squeeze the dimensional magic over top of it, you do need something to contain it (it's a liquid consistency).
To secure the image into the recessed opening, you don't need a lot of glue, mostly it's to hold the image in place temporarily, so I just use a couple of dots here and there!
Before you play in the next part, I would put the brooches onto a nice piece of cardboard, in a location where they can sit undisturbed to dry for at least a few hours (time to dry depends on how thick you make the layer).
Now for the fun part..take your dimensional magic and squeeze it out to flood overtop of the image. You don't need to work at a fast speed or anything, just make sure you cover the image, and keep in mind if you go really thick with it, as it dries you do risk it caving in a bit.
Did you get air bubbles? No worries - just take a pin and pop the air bubbles before you leave it to set. How long, you ask? Give it longer than you would think.
Dimensional Magic will pour on opaque (as you can see from the image on the right, that's how it looks just after pouring), but it definitely dries clear. When you think it's dry, give it longer - I have gotten excited and touched it when it wasn't quite ready, and still soft so left a finger imprint (oops).
Patience is your friend here :) And you will be rewarded with some absolutely cool and stunning brooches you can adorn your dolls with!
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You can see how the Dimensional Magic adds this layer that resembles glass overtop of an image, it is such a cool product! Here's another Pumpkin Head Doll I made with a different brooch:
Let me know if you get a chance to try out this tutorial! Can you think of other uses for Dimensional Magic? Please share them!