Plexiglass Heart Bracelet

This week's jewelry project is the plexiglass heart bracelet I made in class at Artiscape yesterday. Tonia Davenport, author of "Plexi-class: Cutting Edge Projects in Plastic", taught the class personally.
In preparation for the class, I packed a bag that included a borrowed dremel tool, an anvil and metal files, a jeweler's saw and bench pin. I had never used any of these tools prior to yesterday's class, so I was excited and nervous about being able to successfully make any cool, artistic plexiglass projects.

It was a lot of fun to have a friend and a fellow blogger (Nancy, from "never enough time") in class as well as some new friends and multi-talented crafters! There was quite a bit of laughing and silliness going on in class as well as a flow of great ideas and artistic talent!

In hindsight, I would have taken some photos of classmates and finished projects. Even though we all started out making a simple plexiglass heart necklace, each person's project took on a life of its own and became a unique work of art. LOTS of fun! As you can see from this photo, mine turned into a bracelet with a shrink plastic dangle with the word "smile" rubber stamped on it. I also added a little piece of "jewelry" to my plexi heart just for fun.

By the way, did you know you could use a heat gun on shrink plastic? And, thanks to Nancy's ingenuity, we also heated up our finished plexiglass hearts with the heat gun to get a little bend in them. I got a little carried away with it and melted my plexi a bit, but the effect was pretty cool! It made it appear as though it was glass with bubbles in it. Plastic is a versatile medium for jewelry making!

I hope you are all having a great weekend!! I see that Nancy also posted her plexiglass heart project on her blog, so make sure you pop over there if you get a minute! If any of the others in the class are reading this, send me your pics and I'll add them here too.

THANKS for a great class Tonia!