Keychains? Or Bookmarks?

Hello!

I have something for you today that I was playing around with using products from the Creative Inspirations Paints store and wanted to share.  And you may decide for yourself what they really are.  (They're not keychains.)  :-)
 

I know, I know, they LOOK like keychains, and I suppose you could use them for that if you wanted, but I think they'd be really cute bookmarks as well.  At least that's what I'm telling my husband when he opens his Father's Day card and one of these falls out.  Shhh...

They are made with clear shrink plastic, Creative Inspirations Paints, CI Resinesense, and rhinestones (one of which is a CI Jeweled Inspiration).

I cut the shapes with regular dies (the largest of each shape), punched a 1/2" hole in one end, sanded one side with fine grit sandpaper, and painted the sanded side with CI Paints, in this case Gold and Garnet.  Now before I go any further, let me say that some of the pictures don't match the finished products because I wasn't really planning on doing a tutorial per se and just snapped a few pics here and there as I was experimenting.  The pic below on the left was not a keeper.  I tried to use more than one color and it didn't work out.  The one on the right worked fine.

Two colors turned very muddy when shrunk.

A single color worked much better.

After painting the shapes, I stamped images with Staz-On.  Then I put the heat gun on them until they were shrunk.

Here's a confession: I was actually trying to use the shiny (non-sanded) sides of the shapes, but after several failed attempts, it turned out that the painted side looked better - shimmery and glittery!

Tip:  For larger shapes, dust with Embossing Buddy first so the shape doesn't stick to itself when shrinking, like this one did.  It was a challenge to flatten it out.  (Some colorful language may have ensued.)

At this point I  painted the backs of the shapes with the same color paint, four coats.  Then I signed them and topped things off with a coat of clear glaze.

Now it was time to finish the fronts.  I used CI Paint's newest product, the wonderful one-step resin, Resinesense.  I applied several thin coats to allow the resin to build up into an attractive, full shape.  Of COURSE I goofed and caused one of the shapes to leak resin into the punched hole, but a small drill bit took care of that after it dried (because that was when I discovered it).  The good news is the shimmer from the paints isn't dimmed at all by the resin. 

I applied a rhinestone to one and a Jeweled Inspiration to the red shape.  It just took a tiny bit of glue to hold them until the resin could anchor them in place.  Those babies aren't going anywhere.

And here are the finished products.  There is a lot of room for creativity here.

Needs more stamping.

A little too much stamping.

This one's juuuust right.

Thank you for joining me and I hope you give these keychains er... bookmarks a try.  We'd love to see them!  And don't forget to join our current challenge, the theme of which is Inspired By: Father's Day!

Happy crafting!

Supplies used:

From the Creative Inspirations Paints store: Paints: - Gold, Garnet; Jeweled Inspirations; Resinesense.
Clear shrink plastic
Rhinestone
Staz-On ink

Challenges entered:

Crafty Cardmakers #93 - Father's Day
Creative Card Crew #38 - Metal
Simon Says Stamp - Masculine/Father's Day
Pile It On #23 - For or From a Father
Eclectic Ellapu - "B" is for... (bookmark, bling)