Stick pins swap

I love to add little items of interest to my scrapbooking projects and cards.  I'm also the type of person who likes to touch things.  I definitely get the whole 'attention to detail' thing.  I love 'elegance';  I love 'fun';  I love 'quirky'.  I love stick pins!  They are perfect for (literally LOL) sticking anywhere.  They can add a whole new dimension to a project or be the final finishing touch that was required.  Oh and using them on cards ... well don't get me started LOL!  Don't you love it when you receive a handmade card that has you reaching out to 'touch' bits??  Over the past 12 months or so as they have grown in popularity I must have purchased dozens of them.  Okay so that's an out and out lie LOL ... more like hundreds of them!!!!  Why oh why it did never occur to me to make my own?!?!  I could have saved a small fortune!

Thank you Leanne (hi Leababy!) for having the brilliant light bulb moment to make your own stick pins. Thank you for sending some to me with a gorgeous RAK that totally did everything (and then some) RAKs are intended to do!  Thank you for suggesting we have a stick pin swap over at ScrapChat.  LOL I wonder ... were you prepared for the 948 groups you have signed on to sort and send?!?!?!!!!

I've had an enormous amount of fun making these tiny little treasures.  GB has been the sweetest of sweethearts popping out to Spotlight not once, but twice (!!), for me and then ringing me with the 'low down' on pins LOL!  He truly is an angel.  I've discovered my favourite pins for making stick pins ... Birth extra long quilting pins and Birch wig pins.  I loved the length of the quilting pins and the size of the pin head was perfect.  Although the wig pins were a little more difficult to work with given they are a thicker pin, and shorter, I love their fun, quirky look.

All up I've made 80 stick pins.  They were quick and easy.  Apart from needing to purchase some pins they weren't expensive to make either.  All of the beads I used came from either my 'previous crafting lives' stash (we all have one of those don't we??) or from the 'too good a bargain to pass up/I'll use these one day' stash (LOL) or, finally, the 'upcycled' stash where anything and everything that can be salvaged from something before it is turfed, is stored.

I'm yet to sort them into groups for the swap itself, but here are my finished stick pins ...

Products used include: a variety of Ribtex and other beads, Maya Road trinket pins,

a variety of Birch pins, and pom poms (had to have some fun texture in there!)