Keiki Glass Pebble Pins

My Girl Scouts made these pretty glass pins as a craft project for a scouting event. The project is easy but drying time accounts for a lot of the "time" in this project. You can make it too with these supplies.

* Clear glass garden pebbles that you can pick up at a crafting or gardening shop. It usually comes in bags of plenty so you can make a lot but note that these are not necessarily for crafting so you'll see some flaws in the stones and the shapes are not uniform. The pebbles come in different sizes. These are about 1.25" in diameter. I got my pebbles from Walmart.

*Decorative paper

*Brooch pins

*Clear finger nail polish to use a sealer.

*Tacky glue or clear drying glue.

*Optional Crazy Glue or a strong and permanent glue like E6000. When working with young children Tacky glue will be fine.

1. First cut the paper to a size that covers the flat bottom of your glass pebble. Because we were making a lot of these, I used a paper punch to cut my shape. The punch I had was a floral one but it worked out okay. You can see the floral pattern on the Hello Kitty and purple stone.

2. Seal your paper, front and back, with clear finger nail polish. You can do this ahead of time if you want it to be dry and have the kids skip this step. I used 2 coats on each side.

3. When the polish is completely dry, dab a little Tacky glue on the flat bottom of pebble. Place the decorative side of the paper on the bottom of glass and move the paper around to spread the glue. Try to get out any big air bubbles by pressing down on the paper. Let dry.

4. Place another coat (or 2) of nail polish over the bottom when the glue is dry. Try to make sure you get all the edges to prevent water from seeping in between the paper and pebble.

5. When the polish is dry, glue on a brooch pin with tacky glue or Crazy glue. Clean up any glue you might have gotten on the pebble with a wet cloth and a little scraping of finger nails.

6. Wear your unique creation!

I soaked my pin in water for over 2 hours and the water did not seep into the paper.

My kids and I made these pins without the finger nail polish sealer but when it got wet it started to fall apart. I also used Mod Podge and though it worked well on sealing the paper, it didn't work well on step 4 (the final seal) because I could scrape the Mod Podge off the glass when it was dry. I'd suggest to use inexpensive finger nail polish as a sealer for a longer lasting glass pebble pin.

You can make a very nice professional glass tile pendant with this Craft Bits tutorial.

A project by Keiki Gift Ideas
http://keikigifts.etsy.com