I must confess, I'm a GEEK! (If you didn't already know this, now you do!) I'm sure you've noticed my fair share of blogging about Buffy or Joss Whedon, but I've barely talked about TheGuild! It's basically a show (web series) centered around Syd/Codex and her "friends" who love to play a online role-playing game (think World of Warcraft) and how they interact with each other in game and real life. You can catch episodes on their website, YouTube or Netflix...I suggest you do! :)
I've felt pretty crafty towards The Guild recently and made myself a couple items in honor of my favorite web series!
Please allow me to rewind for a quick second....
I <3 The Guild sooo much that I went to the Long Beach Comic Con back in April just to catch a glimpse of them taping Season 5!
I'll admit, I was stalking the set!
Taking quick pics when the guards weren't looking!
(Hence the blurry photos) XD
Getting back on track... A couple seasons ago Zaboo had this Highland Sextacy painting done for Codex to show how much he supported her "relationship" with Fawkes (leader of the rival guild). Think Geek actually started selling Team Codex-Fawkes (Team Cawkes >:) ) posters! I subsequently emailed Think Geek to see if they would be selling t-shirts with the print. Sadly, they responded no because it would be too hard to print the dark picture, resolution, etc..
Then I thought: "Hey, I've made my own 'screen printed' shirts before! I can totally do a Team Cawkes shirt myself!". A trip to the fabric store to buy a tee and dark transfer paper and I was ready to get to business. I just downloaded the image, printed it out on the transfer paper, ironed it on the tee, altered the tee to fit me better & voila!
Me & my Team Cawkes shirt!
But I didn't stop there - because dude, I need jewelry to go with the shirt! "I can make shrinky dink charms out of The Guild icons and make a charm bracelet!" As it turned out, my shrinky dink charms came out a tad bit too large..."Necklace it is!".
Here's how I did it:
(Disclaimer: ALL images are property of The Guild (Felicia Day, et al)! I made the shirt and the necklace just for myself! I do not intend to sell them!)
Downloaded the icons and printed them out on shrink paper.
Then I cut them out, punched charm holes and laid them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet to bake/shrink at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes.
They went from really BIG
(a little more than a quarter of a regular sheet of paper)
to big charm size (about 2 inches) :
(By the way, sorry for the crappy images! I was using my phone camera at night!)
To keep the ink from running (from either getting wet or sweat) I decided to put a clear coat on each charm. I started by using nail polish (since I couldn't find my Diamond Glaze) and found out that it was a bad idea.
If you look closely, you'll notice that something funny started to happen to the Clara (blue) charm when I applied the nail polish. The ink wanted to run - yikes! So I sprayed a clear coat of Krylon on the charms. As it turned out, that wasn't the wisest choice either because it made the ink spotty. I ultimately decided that I didn't buy the proper shrink paper because the ink did not want to fully dry!
Though, I must make another confession: I hate waiting for things to set! Whether it be glue, paint, nail polish, ink, whatever - I get impatient! I want to get to the next step! Which I have found never really helps any project. I just get so excited that I want to get to the finished product! I'm sure many of you other artists/crafters have been in this situation before as well! Come on, 'fess up!
I'm sure if I had waited overnight for the printer ink to dry on the shrink paper then tried to bake/shrink the charms I would have had much more positive results!
Anyway, I soldiered on!
I did end up applying a coat of the nail polish to the charms to make them glittery. ;)
I wire worked the charms onto a white enameled chain and added a lobster claw clasp.
Then I laid out different colored Czech glass heart and star beads to see how I wanted the remainder of the necklace to look. Then I put all the beads on head pins and wire worked them on the chain. I omitted some beads and added others and this is what I ended up making:
There's me & my finished product! I couldn't be a happier jeweler/geek!
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