Working Wednesday: Love Letter Pendants

When we were brainstorming on what we could create for Valentine's Day, we started by asking ourselves, “what do we think of when we think of Valentine's Day?” Of course, we all thought of the Valentine's from Elementary school. We also said the 14 days of I love you, which is a tradition in our house where I give them little Valentine’s for the first 14 days of February. Neither of those ideas inspired jewelry. Then I started thinking back to when we were in high school and what “love” and Valentine’s looked like to us. For me, all high school romance revolved around letters… well, notes that were exchanged in between class that was folded in cute ways and decorated adding extra details of love! I still have notebooks filled with “love letter” from Steve. Now, this inspired me! I thought about things that could be physically shown in love letters such as “big hearts, the key to your heart, you are the queen of my heart, all sealed with a kiss.” Now that I had my idea, it was time to create Love letter pendants!

Love Letter Pendants

Supplies

· Thick white paper

· Scissors

· Mini Queen of Hearts cards

· Sequen hearts

· Small Key Charms

· Lips (Kiss) Charms

· Resin (mixed)

· Gloves

· Waxed parchment paper

First, we made the envelopes. I cut the paper into little small square-ish rectangles pieces. I did a variety of sizes ranging from an inch or so to very tiny pieces.

Next, I folded the square in half, creating a triangle. In this step, the side must meet,

so If you square was more of a rectangle, I just made the sides even and cut off the excess.

Then you open it up and fold two corners to the center.

Lastly, you fold the bottom corner to the center.

Originally I had glued the envelope together at this point BUT… when we resined the pendants, the glue worked as a sealing agent, making the glued spots discolored from the rest of the envelope

(so when I remake some for Six Five Four Creations Store, I will not be gluing them together).

Next, we decorated the envelopes. (described below)

I also took a push pin and added a small hole at the top of each envelope

so that I could easily attach the ring after it dried.

Steve had found some Miniature deck cards at a craft store,

but when we opened it, the deck only had Queen of Hearts and the Ace of Spades!

He just said, “we will figure out something to do with them eventually!”

As always, he was right (shhh!! don’t tell him I said that!!!) The cards were a little longer than I liked for the envelops I was putting them in so, I cut them in half.

For the rest, I just had to have my supplies together and ready for when I resined them.

I covered my counter with a sheet of waxed parchment paper, put my gloves on, and mixed the resin. The resin comes in two parts: a resin and a hardener. You mix it at a 1:1 ratio measured by volume, meaning it requires equal amounts of both resin and hardener. Mixing the resin and hardener creates a chemical reaction, transforming them from a liquid into a solid. At first, I was using a paintbrush to cover them with resin, but after about two, I just picked them up and rubbed the resin all over them. Then I covered the decoration (card, lips, or heart) with resin and put it into place. With the cards I made sure the card looked like it was sticking out of the envelope (I lined up the cut edge with the folds on the envelope). I did have to put pressure where all the folds met for about 20 seconds each to make sure it set into place (for a few of them, I had to re-push down after 10 minutes or so). For the lips and hearts, I put them directing on top of the folds to hold the envelope together.

I left on the waxed parchment paper for the next 24 hours so that they could dry (harden).

I then pierced the envelope with the pushpin for the holes.

I added the rings to make them necklaces or earrings.

For the “Key to my heart,” I added another (smaller) ring to the hole in the top of the sequin heart to attach the key charm.

I think these all turned out pretty cute, perfect for a Valentine's gift… just saying! I will be remaking the queen of Hearts Friday and have them available on the Six Five Four site and Facebook by Sunday, but I wanted to make sure that I shared them with all of you on time (staying with my New Year’s resolutions!)

I hope you enjoy these! Until Next time…