In September we ran a competition with British online marketplace Folksy to win a free stall space at the BUST Christmas Craftacular in London. The winner was I Am Acrylic with its quirky plastic jewelry designs. Ruth and Brendan started making jewelry in 2004 and hand-cut all their pieces on a fretsaw (so no lasers here) in their London studio.
And at the December 14 BUST Christmas Craftacular they will be running workshops all day so that you can cut out and keep your very own acrylic necklace or keyring.
Ruth and Brendan explain the process: “Come and have a play with our tools and learn how to make an acrylic keyring or necklace!
You can use our templates or design your own. Once you’ve chosen your shape and color, you’ll draw it out onto the protective layer on the acrylic. Then we’ll add some sticky tape to help keep the blade lubricated whilst cutting. (It gets hot and can get stuck otherwise.)
Then you’ll use a piercing saw to cut out the shape – it’s easy! And will probably only take 5 minutes at the most.
Top tip: choose a shape without any corners if you’re not feeling too confident with the saw.
Then you’ll put your shape into a vice and clean up the rough edges with needle files and a quick scrape with a stanley blade (not pictured).
Then a final sand down with some dry ‘wet & dry’ sand paper.
Finally you, or we, will drill a hole for the jump ring to go through, before making it into a keychain or a necklace!
Done! We estimate it will take 20 minutes in total – or maybe, more realistically, 30 minutes, ‘cos we’ll want to have a gossip and maybe a biscuit whilst we work!”
BUST Christmas Craftacular, The Islington Metal Works, 7 Torrens Street, London EC1V 1NQ. It’s just round the corner from Angel tube station. Admission is £3 – and there’s an amazing goodie bag for the first 100 people through the door!
