Memorial Weekend Crafts!

As my Memorial Day weekend continues today, I had time today to do another craft project :D Using this tutorial and some t-shirt strips I made a 5 strand headband! I used a bright salmon, dark brown and a light brown color. Though the pictures look a little grey, I assure you it is brown :) 

Last night as I was watching Casino Royale I started on a little purple octopus for my friend for her birthday. I think it's just too cute :)

Baked Marble Necklace

I saw this cool project online where you could bake marbles, put them in ice cold water and the inside would crack, looking like a gem stone. So I figured I would try it! 

I went to Michael's and got a bag of clear glass marbles (they have to be translucent in order to be able to see the cracks). First of all I took wax paper and put it in a cake tin and put the marbles on top, and put them in the oven which was pre-heated to 500 degrees. Yeah, I figured out real that wax paper, that is meant for baking wont hold up in those extreme temperatures. I looked in and saw it smoking and burning. So, I would suggest NOT using wax paper. I ended up just putting the marbles straight in the cake tin.  

I left them in there for 20 minutes. 7 minutes before the timer went off though I got the water ready. The colder you can get the water the better. I put about 6 cups of cold water and 10-15 ice cubes. I noted that after the 5 minutes the ice had been in the water, it wasn't melting or it wasn't noticeable. At that point the marbles were done with their 20 minutes! I took them out, and gently dumped them into the bowl of ICE cold water. This is where people have had marbles crack in half, NONE of mine did that!!

*When they are taken out of the water they may be cloudy, it's normal.* Well, I noticed when they had dried off and cleared up some, they weren't really cracked that much on the inside. So I repeated the process over again. Baking them 20 more minutes, and putting them into ice cold water (some new ice cubes). And after I let them dry, they looked better!

I made them into necklaces, but due to the nature of them being cracked inside, they are easily broken if dropped or slammed into something hard. I decided to over look this and make a cage for them. I had some Wild Wire supplies left and used some wire and pliers from it. 

I bought some screw clasps..

And after about 15 minutes I had a spiral cage for the marble, it attached to the string, and the clasps attached to the string!

Finished Necklaces for sale HERE