Stamped Washer Necklaces

I simply could not work up my sewing mojo to craft Mother's Day gifts this year. With a mother, step-mom, mother in law, grandma and 2 step-grandmas, it can be a bit daunting to think up crafting ideas... and then get them complete in time for Mother's Day. Lucky for me, I saw an adorable washer necklace idea - (saw it here, post was from here) a bit back and had ordered the letter stamp kit from here. It arrived Thursday, just in time for some midnight crafting. After a bit more googling, I discovered that the stamping of washers is old hat to many of the crafty bloggers out there - but it was new to me and fit the bill for Mother's day gifts for a crowd.


Thursday night, I made my way to the furnace room in the basement where we have cement floor and pounded the letters onto the washers with a hammer. Rowan was my wing-man - handing me the letters as I called them out to her. After a bit of experimenting, I ended up painting the washers with black acrylic paint, wiping the excess off, and sealing the washers with a metal primer. I tried using a sharpie like the tutorials called for to highlight the letters, but could not get all the marker off. I like how the paint stuck both in the letters and on the washers and aged them a bit. I scavenged the craft buckets for some ribbon and beads - and snapped a few shots of the results.

Here is my mom's, with the grand baby initials and her name "Gouma".

For Dave's mom.

After I was done, I realized I loved the washers and stamping but not the cording I had used on them. I ended up running to Joann's on Friday afternoon and picked up some clasps and black cord. I replaced all the cording like the one below (for BL, but she hasn't seen it yet) just in time for gifting on Sunday.

I love how they turned out for the moms.... so had to make my own too (yep, selfish). Wouldn't these be great teacher gifts? Griffin's last day is Monday, so I think I'll be heading down to spend more time with the furnace again soon :)