Plastic charm bracelet

Create a stylish cool blue charm bracelet with plastic beads from Sizzix.

Plasic Charm Bracelet

1. Cut several medium and slightly smaller squares from the sheet of shrink plastic. Ink up a suitable bird design stamp with a black Stazon ink pad and allow the ink to go slightly tacky before placing a plastic square, rough side down, onto the stamp.
2. Press down lightly without smudging and remove the plastic. This method allows you to see exactly where you are printing the image and helps with centralising it. Stamp the remaining squares in the same way, using a flourish design on the smaller pieces.
3. Colour each image with a selection of waterbased brush marker in shades of blue, green and turquoise. Don’t worry if the colours seem too pale as they will darken upon shrinking. Allow the ink to dry before punching a hole, (approx 4mm as the hole size will shrink as well) in the top of each square.
4. Place the pieces on a baking tile and cooking on a low heat until they have completely shrunk. Remove from oven and flatten if necessary with an acrylic block while still warm and malleable. Seal the back of each piece with a thin layer of clear acrylic varnish and when dry add a layer of silver nail varnish if desired to make the image stand out better when viewed from the front.
5. Thread up a length of beading elastic with a selection of blue glass beads and small silver beads. Add three or four silver jump rings between each bead. Check the fit of the bracelet against your wrist and knot the ends together tightly several times, adding a drop of strong glue for extra security before trimming away the ends of the elastic.
6. Lay the bracelet on a flat surface. Fit a jump ring into each hole of the shrunk plastic pieces. Attach these evenly around the bracelet, using the jump rings already threaded onto the elastic and making sure each charm faces up.
7. Take a small sheet of thin, flexible blue plastic and cut several small asymmetrical ovals from it. Use a standard hole punch to cut a disc from the leftover centre pieces of each oval before making small holes in the edge of each piece.
8. Fit a jump ring into each small hole and attach the plastic ovals to the bracelet as before, filling in the gaps between the charms or placing them behind them.