Fabric Cuff with Crystal Lacquer Embellishment

The heart on this fabric cuff was made from Sakura Crystal Lacquer and Terri Sproul Mixers in Green Pearl.  You can get 20% off your total purchase at Sakura Hobby Craft for the entire month of June by entering coupon code Crystal06 when you check out!

Here’s how I make the Crystal Lacquer “film.”  I save the packages from wafer thin dies.  They are perfect for this because they have a little bit of a lip that holds in the Crystal Lacquer.  I pour a little Crystal Lacquer into the plastic container, add Terri Sproul Mixers and stir.  When this hardens, you can cut any shape you want.  Once you trim the edges off, you can put the film through a diecut machine.

I chose my die and then used it to cut a template of white paper.  Then I used the template to cut a
piece of my Crystal Lacquer film.

This allows me to use the smallest possible piece of whatever I am diecutting. When I am cutting a small piece on a large black plate, it’s hard for me to see where to put the material I’m cutting.  So I placed the template on top of the die in the exact place it was cut from, and that told me where to place my Crystal Lacquer film.

I used an awl to make holes in the heart, so I could sew it onto my cuff like a button.

I tore a strip of canvas to use as the base for my cuff.  I cut two pieces, each 8 ½ inches long.  I wanted to turn under ½ inch on each end and I wanted a 7 ½ inch finished cuff.

I chose some materials to work with.  I recently took a class in Gelli Plate printing, and I had some canvas pieces I wanted to use.  They coordinated well with some gauze and  seam binding I had dyed, and with some vintage buttons I just got.

The printed canvas wasn’t long enough to cover the entire cuff, so I cut a strip, centered it on the canvas and stitched it down.

I cut a piece of seam binding, put Fray Check on the ends and pinned it in place to make a loop closure.  Then I cut a piece of the gauze.  The gauze had crinkled itself up while it was drying, so I didn’t have to do anything to it to give it that gathered look.  I decided to stitch down the seam binding before sewing all the layers together, so I turned the edges of the canvas under on the side with the loop and used a straight stitch to secure the seam binding.  It turns out that fabric cuffs are sort of like other bulky bracelets in that you have to allow extra wearing ease.  The cuff was going to be too tight for me this way, so I ended up not turning the other ends of the canvas under.

I assembled all the layers with a zigzag stitch, and I stitched all the way to the end of the unturned edge.

Then I sewed on my heart and my button:

And my cuff was finished!

As always, please let me know if you have any questions.