Inspired by Lailenia - An Autumn Handbag Charm,

Hello and Welcome to Magpieheaven, Followers and Friends! Over at PaperArtsy, there have been some spectacular autumn creations this month, and last night - September 29th, Leilania shared her Shrink Plastic experiments with a beautiful result. She made a great Halloween pendant. I've loved the possibilities of Shrink Plastic since I discovered it a while back. I decided that I would use it to create a quick gift in the form of a handbag charm. Instead of a Halloween Theme like Leilania, I went for an Autumn one; as this was to be a little October birthday gift for a friend's daughter.

First I painted a sheet of Polyshrink with some water-diluted Fresco. I used Butternut, which is now no longer available, but there are other lovely autumnal shades in Frescos: Autumn Fire springs to mind! I had a little Eiffel Tower charm from a broken pendant and a dog tag, given me by friend, Lucy and some jump rings. These I painted with Guacamole Fresco.

My next step was to die-cut my plastic into leaf shapes, using Tim Holtz's Tattered Leaves die. I then punched a hole at the tip of each leaf with a Cropodile!

Before melting my leaves, I stamped them with these images from Lynne Perrella's PaperArtsy Collection 028 in Jet Black Archival. To both steady the plastic in the blast from the heat tool and to keep that hole open, I anchored my leaves with a pair of craft tweezers.

Treasure Gold in Rose Quartz, Green Amber and Classic gave a nice antique look to the painted dog tag, jump rings and charm.

I also gave the backs a good coating of Treasure Gold. You could glaze your leaves with Glossy Accents or a couple of coats of clear UTEE, but I decided to keep them matte. This was such a quick gift to make, I couldn't believe how soon it was finished! Paris is, I suppose, considered most beautiful in the Springtime; but I love the city in the light of an autumn afternoon. I first visited Paris with a dear friend thirty-five years ago in late September and it was just magical. As we were wandering through the steep cobbled streets of Montmartre the incredible voice of Edith Piaf singing 'La Vie en Rose' rang out from the window of a tall apartment building. My friend and I felt as if we were part of a Francois Truffaut film! I should like to link my handbag chain to PaperArtsy's September Challenge here and thank you for taking the time to drop by Magpieheaven today.