Papertrey Posse August Parade of Blogs

Keva,our August hostess, challenged us to create something using our favorite technique or to try a new technique. Before I show you the technique I chose, I want to show you a bracelet I have had my eye on (and one of the reasons I chose the technique I did).

Isn't it cute?! This bracelet is by Fossil and they have several styles and colors of leather bracelets. I particulary love this teal one with the rhinestone bird. I have been waiting for it to go on clearance, so I can bring it home with me! Which brings me back to our challenge. When Keva issued our challenge, I went to splitcoaststampers.com and looked through their resource page and guess what I found-- this tutorial for grungeboard bracelets by Beate Johns! www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/grungeboardbracelet
Now I can make my own bracelets while I patiently wait for a good sale. I didn't have any of the grungeboard that is already embossed, so I took my plain grungeboard and ran it through my Cuttlebug with my PTI Woodgrain impression plate. I then painted it teal and applied a gloss varnish once the paint dried. I looked in Michael's for a hitch fastener but couldn't find one. But, it just so happens that I had one on a bracelet that I already owned. The nice thing about hitch fasteners is that they screw on and off. So, even if you only have one, you can switch them back and forth between bracelets any time you want. I was also hoping to find a cute rhinestone bird charm at Michael's, but no luck there either. So I just used a button I had and added an adhesive rhinestone to it with Crystal Effects.

You can see the texture a little better in this photo:

When my little monkey saw what I was making, she decided right away that she needed a bracelet, too!

For her bracelet, we used the Sunshine Impression plate to add texture and then painted it green. Instead of adding a button to the center, I used the Beautiful Blooms dies to cut flowers out of PTI's Vintage Cream felt and added a Pure Poppy button to the center. I attached the flowers and button with some silver stretchy cord and punched two little holes in the grungeboard to thread the cord through and tied it off (the button on mine is attached the same way). Instead of using a hitch fasterner on hers, I justed added another button to one end of the bracelet and added a loop of the silver cord to the other end.

See the texture on her bracelet? I was suprised at how well the impression plates work with the grungeboard!

Both of our bracelets all finished!

These bracelets were so fun to make and think of all the possibilities there are with differnt colors, textures, and adornments!