You know Rings & Things is all about the “grow your business” tips. One of the most inspiring kinds of tips we’ve found in the craft jewelry world are ways to multipurpose the parts you use and the designs you make. Here’s another way of getting that extra mileage…out of bracelet blanks and frame charms/pendant blanks:
Instead of gluing onto them, “paint” pretty designs on the flat pads with rubber-stamping inks. Cindy Gimbrone shows off this great inspiration in her wonderfully titled blog post, “Glue is Not My BFF”.
Cindy also came up with the idea of adding texture and design elements by hammering a bracelet blank. This way, you wind up with a personalized piece of jewelry with no need to spend much on embellishments!
Another unglued inspiration from Cindy is this Deconstructed Watch on our brass square frame. This project can be done for under $10!
Here’s one of Lisa‘s ideas from her A Bead A Day blog:
multi-stranding by adding a couple strands of chainmaille-type link work on either side of the bracelet blank.
In another great burst of inspiration, Lisa also created not just a bejeweled pendant, but also an amazing bracelet centerpiece, from our glue-on pendant frames.
Lisa says that this third design– 
–is easy to do, but I think it’s so impressive that you’d think it took a jewelry master’s touch.
The always-productive Lisa also came up with this cool approach, 
which she titled “Jewelry Making w/Scrapbooking Supplies”.
Tish (quite brilliantly I think) documented her first experiment with bracelet blanks, “in case it was brilliant.” She wasn’t satisfied with the results of the bracelet, but wound up with a great tutorial on what to look out for when combining polymer clay with bracelet forms!
More “Glueable Challenge” pieces by Tish included the poly clay design above…
Dawno deconstructed a bracelet blank in a nice tutorial at her blog…
…and invented a cool new technique–
–that I want to call faux cloisonné!
Melanie of Earthenwood Studios had multiple ideas too. Interestingly she also took apart a bracelet blank,
this time to make a necklace.
She also combined her unique “cog” and “face” ceramic creations with our frame charms:
We hope these neat creations by our Blog Partners give you some ideas that you’ll run with and make your own!
Have more ideas for using glueable frame charms & bracelet blanks? Talk about them in a comment below!
April giveaway: “DIY Display Ideas”:
* You enter by leaving comments under the March 31 giveaway announcement
* At the end of April, 2 winners will receive coveted Rings & Things goodie packs!
*So read the blog regularly to see if you won!
2 Comments
So wonderful to see so many ideas all on one page! Thanks, Dave.
Couldn’t have done it without all these enthusiastic designers, including you, Dawno!