Q: How did you get into making charms?

Yesterday my friend Jillian came by to my place since she's never been there before, and to help me in my production process for Anime North! (Thank you Jill!!♥)

I had printed out another packaging design, a more sweet and girly version to complement my other design (which I introduced a few posts back). I guess my yellow/purple one will be the "Classic/Cute" design for all my cute/random earring designs and this new pink one will be the "Sweet" design for all my food item earrings. :)


While Jill was working away helping me, and I was sculpting some more, she asked me: how did you get into making charms?

--And it hit me that it was something I never really talked about, because no one ever asked. I always had a love for sculpting (I remember my Dad gave me a huge tub of PlayDoh one Christmas when I was 6 and it was the best present ever, lol) and crafting in general, but charms were a recent-ish thing. (I've been at it for about 6 years now. o.O)

Just for the sake of curiosity, I'll ramble a little about it here (because I'm feeling just a tiny bit nostalgic) and hope that it doesn't turn into a huge wordy post. >< I was looking back at my gallery on my DeviantArt page the other day and one of my oldest and first charms I ever made were these Fruits Basket ones. Some time after starting my DA page, my friend introduced me to anime and I guess that coincided with my interest in charm-making. One of my greatest inspirations was Claire Belton (Queen of Dorks). She made the cutest charms and sculptures out of Sculpey (those are no longer in her DA gallery though). Oborochann was another huge inspiration. I thought their works were so cute and looked relatively simple to make, I thought I could have a try at it too. Plus, it looked fun!

It's also interesting to see how much those above artists have grown and expanded now. As for me, I've pretty much stayed the same all these years. I've learned many techniques along the way, but I don't think I've really improved. >_<

The reason why I still stick to clay instead of moving on to printed 2D designs is because I guess I've always loved the 3D feel of sculpting and working with my own hands. Being able to sell my creations at Anime North has provided me the opportunity to gain some confidence in my love for crafting and anime at the same time. Confidence is something I feel I'll always need to work on.

And that, in a nutshell, is how I got into the hobby of making charms... and eventually I moved along to other small scaled items. Because small = cute. And I love cute things. :)