We were just completing another series of
The Carol Duvall Show when the September 11th tragedy occurred. Folks all over the country began to not only display the American flag but to also make their own small and large items to indicate their love of country. Wendy Schwartz, one of our shows' producers, put her heart and talent into making over 35 of these little pins for all of us to wear . . . which we do, with pride. It seemed only right to share them with you so Wendy very kindly typed up the following directions:
Polymer Clay Ribbon Pin
Project designed by Wendy Schwartz.
Materials:
two packages of Fimo Soft - White
two packages of Fimo Soft - Cherry Red
one package of Fimo Soft - Pacific Blue
Nublade Kato clay tool
pasta machine
Kemper tool cutter - star shape
pin backings
E 6000 glue
Steps:
1. Condition the packages of white, red and blue clay separately by either kneading it with your hands, rolling it with an acrylic brayer or running it through the pasta machine until it is soft and pliable.
2. Once conditioned, roll all the white clay through the thickest setting of the pasta machine or roll it with an acrylic brayer to 1/8 inch thick. Trim clay so that you have a rectangle that is 10" x 3-1/2" wide.
3. Do the exact same thing with the red clay. Then lay the red rectangle directly onto the white clay creating a two-layer stack.
4. Cut this clay stack into 3-1/2" x 3/8" strips.
5. To make the loop, take the strip with one end in each hand and allowing the clay to twist bring the tails together one on top of the other.
6. Roll out your blue clay using a pasta machine or an acrylic brayer so that it is 1/8 inch thick. Use the star shaped clay cutter to cut out stars in the blue clay.
7. Place one of these stars on top of where the tails cross over one another.
8. Bake the "ribbons" in a polymer clay dedicated oven or toaster following the manufacturer's instructions.
9. When cool attach a pin backing to the back of one of the tails using glue.
Tips:
- These pins would be great in larger sizes as well.
- Make sure the pin fastener fits behind the ribbon piece that you're gluing it to. Use a small pin fastener.
- These are quick to do in a production line so make some for your friends, family and coworkers!
- You may want sand and buff the pieces to give them a more finished look.
Foam Flag Pin
Our viewers were quick to respond with "I'm proud to be an American" items and some were kind enough to share them with us.
This little pin, which measures about 2-1/4" x 1-1/2" was sent to us by Sandy Rollenger of Apollo, Pa. The pin consists of a small rectangle of blue fun foam adhered to the upper left-hand corner of a larger rectangle of white fun foam with strips of picot-edged ribbon used to represent the red stripes. Sandy finished the pin by adhering a clear plastic jewel heart in the center of the blue foam.
Beaded American Flag
These little American flag pins made with seed beads and small gold safety pins were a popular craft project back in the early 1990s. Current events have made them popular again.
Note: You may notice a slight discrepancy in the directions. We give directions for five pins with red and white seed beads to follow the blue section but the photo of the pin shows only four. I like the look of five pins better but we ran out of seed beads and went to buy more. Would you believe we were unable to locate any? Three different craft stores had completely sold out of all red, white and blue seed beads following September 11th!
Materials (figure A):
10 small (one-inch) gold safety pins
20 blue seed beads
33 white seed beads
37 red seed beads
nail file
needle nose pliers
Follow the pattern for the American flag shown (figure B). The numbers indicate the configuration for each safety pin, and the beads are indicated by color.
Steps:
1. Starting with the first safety pin, open the clasp and thread the five blue beads, followed by one red bead, one white bead, one red bead, one white bead and one red bead (figure C). Close the safety pin clasp. Repeat with three more safety pins for a total of four with this color pattern.
2. Thread beads on safety pin number five starting with a white bead and alternating with red beads until there are 10 beads on the pin (figure D). Close the safety pin clasp. Repeat with four more safety pins for a total of five with alternating white and red beads.
3. Gently bend open the spring loop of a safety pin using a nail file.
4. Thread the base of a beaded pin onto front shank of the pin, pull it around the loop and onto the back shank of the pin. String the pins beginning with the blue beaded pins first followed by the red and white beaded pins (figure E).
5. Close the loop of the spring using needle nose pliers.
Tips:
- Coat the outside of gold safety pins with a sealer to keep them from tarnishing.
- As you work, close the heads of pins to avoid losing beads.
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