Made one more charm this morning because I was just dying to make this one, and also so I could take a shit ton of pictures and show everyone how to do it! Yay!

Okay, here we go:

Shit you’ll need:

•  Shrinky-dink Ruff and Ready paper. You’ll recognize the package as something that looks like it fell off a church bus in the 70s. This paper is smooth and glossy on one side and textured on the other.
• Prismacolor colored pencils.
• Sharpies, both fine and ultra fine point
• Scissors and maybe an exacto knife
• a hole punch
• clear embossing powder
• some beads and findings and shit, idk
• cell phone straps. I don’t know where Alisa got hers, but she has a shit ton of them she bought somewhere online for dirt cheap.
• a drawing of whatever it is you want to make a charm of, bro! Duh!

I lightboxed my previous drawing of Terezi and changed her clothes. Now she is flarping as Redglare! Terezi, you’re so cute! Some notes on your drawing: unless your character of choice has like, excessive amounts of hair or flowy clothes or giant butterfly wings, you might want to put something behind her to protect all the little fiddly bits that would be torture to cut out and probably warp a lot once baked. For instance, I put a dash of tree foliage behind Terezi because if I had to cut around her noose, it would probably look pretty awful and be fragile. I mean, the foliage isn’t the best choice anyway, but I really couldn’t think of anything else. Also, I put a prominent puff of leaves behind her head. This gives me a place to punch a hole that isn’t in the middle of her forehead and also garuntees I don’t forget to leave enough space to punch a hole when I cut her out! If you forget to leave hole space, you will feel so stupid, I promise you!

Alright. First things first, you’re going to trace your drawing onto the rough side of the shrink paper with your ultra fine sharpie.

I like to just go ahead and color all black areas with Sharpie, but that’s up to you.

Don’t get too crazy detailed with the inking, it’s going to get smaller, don’t forget!

When you’re satisfied with your lines, go ahead and start coloring right over it. Don’t be shy, Prismacolors are super rich and make some really sexy coverage if you lay it on thick. But when you get crumbs on your paper, don’t wipe them off with your hands, they’ll smear, especially if you have white laid down! Just blow them away.

Shading is super hot and looks good even after shrinkage. Don’t worry about coloring right over your lines, we’re going back over them when we’re done. If you’re using white, it’s a good idea to hold your drawing over a darker surface to see if you’ve missed any spots.

When your colors look good, go ahead and re-ink your lines. Your sharpie should just glide over the pencil super easy, you don’t wanna dig that fucker in.

If your sharpie stops working, make little scribbles on a scrap paper until the tip is clean again. Make all those blacks nice and sexy again, and your ready to cut that shit out!

Be careful cutting! Don’t try to cut your stuff in one big piece, because this stuff is NOT as forgiving as paper, and WILL tear if you push it too hard! If you’re good with an exacto knife, you can try that, but when I try it, I do more harm than good. Try to avoid cutting out interior shapes, when we emboss the finished charm later, it’s going to look kind of weird and puckered.

Don’t stress making your cuts super perfect. You’ll have little white spaces round the edges. Just go ahead and touch those up with your sharpie.

PUNCH A HOLE PUNCH A HOLE PUNCH A HOLE You will feel like SUCH an ass if you forget before you bake.

Preheat your oven to 270 degrees or whatever it says on your instructions. Lay your shit out on a clean piece of cardboard (or whatever it says on the instructions.)

When oven’s ready, oh man! Pop that crazy shit in there! I like to crack the oven and watch it do it’s thing. You DEFINITELY don’t want to close the door and walk away for an extended period of time. A couple of seconds is okay, but really, keep an eye on it.

Wwwwiiiiiild!

Shrunk!

But we’re not done yet! Get your CLEAR embossing powder (found by the paper craft/rubber stamp area in your local craft store), and hold your charm over a piece of paper to catch the access. Just kind of…sprinkle it all over. Try to get it even. I may actually have gone too thick here, but you don’t wanna go too thin or you’ll get a pebbly texture on your charm.

Pop her back in the oven and don’t even close the door. Just watch and wait for the white powder to melt and turn completely clear. When that’s done, take it back out and for the love of gog DON’T TOUCH IT. Just let it chill for a while and make sure it’s cool/dry before handling.

Your charm is done! Now to make it bling.

Bust our your beads and findings and shit and play around until you get something you like. This part is all sorts of optional. I like to use some nice Crystazzi beads which are kind of expensive but if you hit up Michael’s when they have a sale you can get a sweet deal. Throw in some cheap seed beads and some pretty spacers and you got something shiny and dangly. Jewelry making tools are useful!

Assembly that shit with some rings….

And you’re done!

Congratulations! Now you can have a sweet cellphone charm too, and you don’t have to pay me to do it for you! Enjoy!

Don’t forget to turn off the oven.