Saturday, January 24, 2015

Stamped washer necklace

When my granddaughter was here in December she was looking for something special that she could make for her mom for Christmas.  My granddaughter makes a huge effort to make every gift something memorable for her mom. They have an incredibly close relationship and it's absolutely wonderful to watch them interact.
We decided to do what all good craft addicts do...we hit Pinterest and came up with this:
                                 http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/originals/af/44/37/af4437b667bea3db6ef70b93283867f5.jpg
A stamped washer necklace. The ones we saw were all made with sterling silver but the only washers I had on hand were stainless steel from the hardware store. The stamps were given to me by my dad years ago and had been sitting in the garage for a while.

This whole project took us about 30 minutes and was incredibly easy. Once you've figured out what you want stamped on the washer, lay out the stamps in order. We put the washer on a metal anvil and used a hammer to stamp each letter. Once the letters were stamped, we used a fat tipped black Sharpie marker to "trace" each letter. The excess ink was cleaned off with alcohol and a soft cloth. I strung 3 beads, one for each of the kids in their birth month color, to hang with the washer. (Sorry about the photo quality...I'm trying to get better at it but like other bloggers they seem to be an afterthought once the crafts are finished.) We strung both pieces on satin cording long enough to be worn but could also be cut to use on her key chain.

I would imagine that using sterling washers would be easier because it's a softer metal than the stainless steel but the stainless will probably hold up longer due to the hardness. You can find the stamp sets in 3 sizes at Harbor Freight along with coupons and locations in your area.

All in all, she was very happy with the way it turned out. And again another "instant gratification" project for us to complete in our week together!

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