Origami bag charm using stamps

Today was spent sorting out my bead stuff from three overflowing boxes, complete with a couple of exploding containers (and I just vacuumed yesterday... *sigh*).   But now I have things more or less sorted- at least as long as I don't buy any more stuff.

To celebrate I have a new project- a bag charm that uses origami Discworld stamps as decoration.  The stamps I've chosen to use are from the town Bonk and feature bats on the original stamps.  I thought it might be fun to make little bat origami figures with them.  When I trawled the internet I found a number of different bat versions out there so I tried each of them.  I also made a little flapping bird just because I could.

If you wish to turn these into bag or jewelery charms we need to stiffen them up a bit.  But first, let's put a hole in the paper so there is some way of adding them to a jump ring later.  A safety pin does this well.

To stiffen up the origami, you need a sealer of some sort.  Varnish would work, but I like using Mod Podge.  It comes in several different finishes, matte, gloss and satin, which is what I used in this project.  Several coats will probably be necessary and a toothpick through the hole can be a useful stand to hold things while drying.

Once they are dry and firm, pop a small jump ring through the hole you made (you may find it necessary to redo the hole with your safety pin).

At this point you can do all sorts of things!  For the bag charm, I first made a 5 cm full persian chain.  To one end I attached a large lobster clasp so I can easily attach it to my bag zip later.

Then I add three different lengths of chain to the origami and join these to the chain I made.  And that's that!

Origami stamps are great for jewelery and for light use tasks such as this, although I would not try and use it for something like a key chain.  I suspect they would be too battered in a pocket with a bunch of keys to survive long.  We'll see how well they survive on my handbag!