Straight Pin Happiness

A very long time a go..... I was a participant of a pin-keep swap, we were to decorate and fill up a baby food jar with old buttons. My partner made me the cutest little jar with the most awesome topped straight pins.

I have been searching for tutorials on how to make these very fun shrinky dink toppers, for my pins since the swap.

I was very surprised to find there were very few tutorials out there for sewing pin toppers.

There were more for making beautiful hat pins, but I was looking for Dressmaker straight pin tutorials.

I will share some of the tutorials that I found.......

Photo found on Pinterest. 

No link for tutorial.

Found at Thoughts of a Card Making Scrapbooker. 

These are very fun shrinky dinky pin heads. Found at Miss Sews-it-all

Found at CraftSanity

I found these cute ones with a tutorial :O)

Most of the cute ones I found were for sale on Etsy.

***Not a complete Tutorial***

What I have gathered from the limited tutorials that are out there on the web... 

First you purchase the longest sewing pins you can find. 

Then you either purchase shrinky dinky plastic or use the top and bottom of a salad container that you purchase from your local deli. This container must be a #6 to shrink properly. 

* If you use this #6 you must lightly sand it on one side. *

I found a fantastic tutorial for this at: Curbly

You can either hand draw or use a rubber stamp to make your designs on your plastic.

After your designs are complete, you pop them in a 350 oven on a tin foil tray.... and watch them shrink. Some of the ladies use a heat gun.. but we used an oven to shrink ours when I was young. That way you can watch them shrink and make more than one at a time. 

Here is another fun idea how to decorate the top of your sewing pins.

Glue bits and bobs on them using: E-6000

Here are a few photos of pins that I found on Pinterest.

I like the pins with glass beads and bobs.. if you are not careful, you don't leave any room on them to really use as a pin. I guess mostly you would use these just for decorations in you lovely pin-keeps.

There is another method that I would not recommend with small children. 

This includes using a Bic Lighter. Here is the link at Cynthias Handiwork.

You use cute...very small buttons. Cut off the back loop of the button. You also cut the top off of the straight pin. Hold the straight pin with the pliers and heat one end up with the Bic Lighter until it is glowing red. Then insert the red hot end into the button before the pin cools.

Here is even fun ones that you sew and glue from Mel's Own Place. 

Please share with us if you know of any tutorials or have your own way of making these very fun and adorable stick pens.....