Fantasy Fiber Fairy Pendant by Lori Mendenhall

Since it’s almost Halloween, I thought this piece would be a perfect project for October. This sassy lady is all decked out in her peacock fairy queen outfit! The idea of this project is to find a great piece of clip art with Fantasy Fiber as a gorgeous background.  The project would work just as well using Fantasy Film as a background! The artwork is then enclosed between glass and faux soldered using epoxy clay.

Let’s get started!

1. To begin with I found a fantastic piece of clip art. Etsy can be a really good source for this. I think this one came from Simply Swank. I printed the picture on cardstock and cut it out. In some cases I would add glitter highlights to the clip art.

2. To make the background, I fused some Art Glitter Fantasy Fiber in Ultra Violet. Two layers are used here because my sheet was too thin and I wanted it to be opaque. I cut out two squares from the fused Fantasy Fiber sheet.

3. I layered the Fantasy Fiber squares and the fairy cut-out on top of a clear piece of glass. This is Memory Glass by Ranger. Then I added a few pieces of Art Glitter’s Movie Star Shapes for a subtle accent. I glued the pieces down using a tiny amount of Art Glitter Designer Dries Clear Adhesive with the Ultrafine Metal Tip. The corresponding glass square went on top to make a sandwich.

4. Using silver-colored Apoxie Sculpt epoxy clay I did some faux soldering.  This idea came from Carmie Cimicata in a write-up she did for the John Bead blog. I have made/sold hundreds of pieces of jewelry using Apoxie Sculpt. It has similar properties to polymer clay, yet it air dries and it sticks to everything – as opposed to polymer clay, which requires glue to adhere embellishments. I used a thick snake of Apoxie Sculpt and wrapped it around my glass sandwich.

5. I then stuck some jump rings into the top. This is much easier than soldering! I’m not too bad with soldering except I have a hard time getting the jump rings on so I really appreciate the ease of this method.

6. I impressed some spirals, suns and flowers into the clay to give lots of interesting texture.

7. I then dusted the clay with Mona Lisa silver metal powder. Carmie’s method uses gilder’s paste to give the metallic sheen.

8. My final embellishments were some Swarovski crystal flatbacks and silver wire spirals.

9. The piece air-dries in a couple of hours. Seal the metallic powder with a sealant. I used Future floor polish.

Note, I received free product in exchange for this article. However, I’ve been using Art Glitter products for years and love them!