Save the Place in Your Reader's Heart -Personalized Acrylic Bookmark

By Terisa Bostic

Forward by Jamie Omahen: Craft Chamemleon is excited to start off 2018 blogging with some of our best and brightest creative facebook group members. We are blessed to have a talented, sharing community there. When I requested help on our blog, these skilled and brilliant people stepped up to the task!

I hope you enjoy this blog post tutorial and those to come as much as we have enjoyed/will enjoy bringing them to you. Now, let's start with our intrepid Terisa's tutorial. the first of many!

Supplies from Craft Chameleon- Click the listing below for more information.

Supplies    Small Triangle Bail

                  Swivel Lobster Clasp

                  Beaded Heart Charms

                  Oval Jump Ring

                  5/8” Acrylic Round Disks—Silver Mirror

                  1”Acrylic Heart-Hot Pink Glitter with Middle Top Hole

                  Blank Acrylic Rectangular Book Mark-Clear

                  Pink and Black Vinyl (or your preferred colors)

                  Needlenose Pliers  (these are different than those used in the tutorial)

                
           1.   Open the bookmark template ( 1.5' x 4" rectangle) provided by Craft 

                 Chameleon. Create a Text Box in Silhouette Cameo Studio.

Template links are available for download from your shipping confirmation email.

Type the name to run vertically down the bookmark. The font I used here is called LW Lucky Hearts.  Adjust your name so it fits in the bookmark template. 

2.   Open the templates provided by Craft Chameleon for the 1” heart and the 5/8” circle. Add them to your working area. 

      I used heart designs from another file I had in my silhouette library, but you can use any heart you like.  Adjust to fit in the templates until you like the way they look.

For the initials, you can use any font desired and adjust the letter to fit the circle template.  For this design I used ED Chunky Paperwork and LW Sweetheart.For the name in the hearts, I used the LW Doodle Font .  I used the same hearts from the 5/8” circles in the previous step to design the other heart.

3.  Cut and weed your vinyl designs. Place transfer tape on vinyl and burnish so that the vinyl will stick to the acrylic. 

4.   All the acrylic shapes come with a thin brown or clear plastic covering that must be removed before placing any vinyl onto the surface.

5.  Remove paper backing from vinyl.  Place the vinyl on each shape in the desired way, and burnish again to adhere the vinyl to the shape. 

Assembly

       

       6.  For this step you will need pliers, triangle bails, and jump rings.  

Using pliers open the triangle bail as shown, insert it through shape, and close with pliers. Do this for the acrylic heart shapes, the heart charm, and the lobster claw.

7.  Using pliers, open the jump rings, and attach through the hole of each of the 5/8” disks.  The triangle bails are too large to fit through the hole on the disks.

8.   Insert the triangle bails attached to the lobster claw into the hole at the top of the bookmark, and close the bails with pliers.

9.   Insert the triangle bails attached to the hearts into the hole at the top of the bookmark, and close the bails with pliers.

10.   Slide the jump rings attached to the 5/8” disks onto the lobster clasp.

  Finished!!

Afterword from Jamie: Thank you Terisa! Our first post for 2018. I love the way the 5/8" disks fan out when put at the end of the lobster clasp. I would never have thought to do that and it's perfect!

Ideas like Terisa's and so many others are the reason to subscribe to our new blog!  We are endeavoring to bring at least 1 post a week and some weeks possibly 2 or more.

Have you made a Craft Chameleon bookmark and want to share? Comment below we'd love to hear from you!

Beautiful Acrylic Bookmark with Crosses

Hi Everyone, I’m  Faye Mitchell and truly excited by Jamie’s request to make a guest blog post.  I’ve decided to make a fancy charm and bead bookmark using mostly Craft Chameleon supplies.  A few items have come from other stores.

Items needed:

Acrylic Bookmark - Craft Chameleon

1.5” Acrylic Cross - Craft Chameleon

15/16” Acrylic Circle - Craft Chameleon

Lobster Clasp - Craft Chameleon

Triangle Bail - Craft Chameleon

Jump rings - Craft Chameleon

Extension Links - Craft Chameleon

Tassels - Craft Chameleon

Charms - Craft Chameleon (not pictured)

Beads

Headpins

SVG Design Program

Vinyl

Jewelry Making Tools  

Diamond Reamer - Craft Chameleon

The first thing I did was make a template of my acrylic bookmark in Silhouette Studio Designer Edition so I could make sure I cut my vinyl out in the correct size.  The acrylic bookmark from Craft Chameleon is 1.5" x 4" so I drew a rectangle with these measurements. 

As you can see I actually drew the rectangle at 4.5” and then put a small line across it at 4” and
put the circle/hole in it.  This part is not necessary but I did it to help me envision the final product.

The next thing I did was decide on what pattern I wanted on my bookmark.  Since my bookmark is for a friend who lost her sister I decided to go with a cross design.  I searched the silhouette design store and found the perfect cross shape and purchased it.  Once I had it purchased I edited it to the size I wanted and duplicated it multiple times so that it formed the design I wanted and covered the entire bookmark.  My actual bookmark is clear but so you could see the design in the Studio I changed it to black for the picture. 

Now I decided on what quote I wanted to put on the bookmark.  I decided to use a bible scripture for comfort.  Using the text tool I typed out the quote and selected my font and sized it to fit the bookmark and charms.  I used the font “Maxwell Bold” for all the wording.  I used the templates from Craft Chameleon to get the sizing correct.  In order to prevent waste of vinyl I used the subtract feature under modify to cut the cross background pattern down to the size of the bookmark.

Once I finished all my designing, I cut and weeded the vinyl and lastly applied it to the acrylic pieces.

 

Make sure you peel the clear plastic coverings off the acrylic pieces first before applying the vinyl.  Then you take your transfer tape and pick up the weeded vinyl pieces and place them onto the acrylic pieces.  

After I have the vinyl applied to the pieces I poke the hole in the acrylic with the diamond reamer I purchased from Craft Chameleon.  I also rub it around the edge of the cross and bookmark acrylic pieces to trim off the excess vinyl from the backs.

Now that I have all the vinyl applied I sit them to the side to cure while I work on assembling the hardware findings and make the bead dangles.  

To start I usually go ahead and attach the triangle bail to the bookmark even though it doesn’t have to be attached right away.  Mainly I do this just so I have this part done and I don’t have to worry about a little helper getting a hold of the triangle bail and putting it in his mouth or just running off with it. 

Next I move onto the bead dangles, once again to prevent a certain little helper from getting ahold of little pieces and scattering them around the house.  Bead dangles are pretty easy to make.  To make a bead dangle you first take your headpin… the ones I use are just plain 2” headpins that I picked up from a big box store.  

You then just thread the beads (also gotten from a big box store in this case) onto the headpin. 

Once you thread your beads onto the headpin comes the tricky part.  You take your round nose pliers and bend the end of the headpin around to make a loop. Once the loop is formed you can trim the excess and manipulate the wire to your desired shape and size.  Then you use a jump ring and attach the bead dangle to the lobster clasp. 

Next I move onto attaching the charms, tassels, and small acrylic pieces.  I do this with a combination of jump rings and extension links depending on the size of each of the pieces and how I want them to hang.

After the vinyl is cured I typically seal the small pieces with either mod podge or clear nail polish.  Once your sealer is dry you can attach the beaded charmed piece using the lobster hook to the triangle bail on the bookmark piece. 

TA-DA you have a finished your fancy charm and beaded bookmark to enjoy the next time you read a long book!!!