Making Art Pendants: The Slow Way and the Fast Way

The Slow Way:

For the past several weeks I've been creating art pendants. Each one is a miniature, original mixed media collage made with my own hand painted papers and an occasional altered "found" paper or two. I use Stampbord (clay coated hardboard by Ampersand) for the substrate and the finest quality silver plated bails. I cut my papers into teeny little pieces, arrange them in a pleasing composition, then tweezer them into place and glue them down. Multiple coats of clear acrylic sealer and acrylic varnish follow.

An Original Art Collection pendant     ©2014 Lynn Edwards

Another Original Art pendant on a black silk necklace cord.   ©2014 Lynn Edwards

They're insanely labor intensive to make but I love making them anyway. So far I've created about two dozen of them in three sizes: 1x1 inch, 1x2 inches and 1 1/4x2 1/4 inches. You can now find some of these for sale in my new Etsy shop: http://www.playingwithcolors.etsy.com.

If you don't have the patience for a project like this, don't worry. There is a much faster, easier way to make an art pendant. Like this one:

The easy way pendant. It features a reproduction of one of my paintings. ©2014 Lynn Edwards

Its creation was pure serendipity. I was discarding some obsolete business cards featuring a photo of one of my older paintings. Just as I was about to drop them into the recycling bin, a light bulb went off in my head. Why not put the colorful images on them to use? I grabbed a scissors and started cutting. Coincidentally, the image on the cards was perfectly proportioned for a 1x2" Stampbord. No size adjustments needed.

After painting the Stampbord, I used soft gel medium to adhere the image and let it dry. Then I sealed and varnished it, letting each coat dry between applications. After waiting 24 hours I glued on a bail. Shazam! A sweet little pendant that assembled in the blink of an eye, so to speak. Not counting drying time it came together faster than it usually takes me to pry open a jar of gel medium. Love that!

Look for some of these pendants appearing in my Etsy shop in June.

If you don't happen to have a preprinted image you can use, there are other options. You could use copies of your favorite photos, or copyright free images in the public domain. (A search for "public domain images" will turn up thousands of possibilities. Just be sure to abide by any use restrictions that are posted.)

No Stampbord on hand? No problem. You can use Scrabble tiles or pre-cut wooden blanks sold in arts and crafts stores. Anything compatible with whatever glue you'll be using to adhere your artwork and bail is a potential candidate. So go for it. It's easy! And fun!

Text, pendant designs and images ©2014 Lynn Edwards