Sweet skully goodness overload

I loved this project, truly loved it.  I have made plenty of shrink plastic charms and stitch markers before (cupcake charms, scrapbook decorations, Pac Man stitch markers, etc), but I loved how these ones came out especially.

I made these as part of an accessory package for a fellow crocheter who seems to like Dia de Muertos sugar skulls.  The other components I had were a journal/sketchbook cover and a crochet hook case in festive skull fabric. 

I found a variety of sugar skull images on line and chose my 6 favourite images, and sized them similarly, taking into account how much the plastic is supposed to shrink.

Then I used a circle template and drew circles on to the shrink plastic and cut them out - about 1 5/8ths inches or so.  One day I am just going to buy a punch around the size I need for greater consistency.

I lay the circles over the printed images and traced out the skull outlines.

Then I coloured parts using Sharpie markers and coloured pencils.  This was pre-sanded plastic, otherwise I would have sanded one side prior to doing any cutting or drawing.

Notice the bright bright white teeth :D  After colouring, I used a punch to put in the ring hole, and baked the plastic to shrink.

Then I patiently, and I do mean patiently, because I was just not as patient before, I varnished the decorated side very carefully with an acrylic clear coat several times, several layers, and waited very patiently for a very long time for it to cure properly, so that I would not mar the finish by touching it too soon.  After that, I added rings and jump rings to turn them into stitch markers.

I had stone skull beads in my stash, and used a couple with leverback earring findings to make two stitchmarkers that can be removeable or attacheable mid-row, and to use as end or beginning markers to a pattern or row.

Here they are on the inside of the hook case I made.  BTW, I like to use binder clips for lots of things.  In this case, they can be used to hold a pattern, with notes, or mark off where in a pattern a person is at without writing on the page, or to hold pieces of yarn for colour sampling, etc.