Charmed I'm Sure!

Whew! I finally finished my charms for my stamp club charm swap - 19! This is the first time I've ever done a charm swap and I really enjoyed it. It took me awhile to come up with an idea, but once I did it was a lot of fun figuring out how it was all going to go together.

I was actually inspired by a sarcastic comment from my 19 year old daughter. I was whining about having no ideas and she said something like, 'take a piece of copper and smash it in an eyeball, something, something, blah, blah, blah.' This probably sounds weird unless you first understand that we are very, very weird so that is a fairly normal conversation. All I heard was smash copper and a little lightbulb went off over my head!

I had some unfinished wooden spools that I thought might work well for the base. I inked them and wrapped them with copper strips that I embossed with the word 'Create'. A black glass bead in the top and bottom holds the head pin in place.

When they were done I thought they looked a bit like Tibetan Prayer Wheels. From Wikipedia:

A prayer wheel is a cylindrical 'wheel' (Tibetan: 'khor) on a spindle made from metal, wood, stone, leather, or even coarse cotton. Traditionally, the mantra Om Mani Padme Hum is written in Sanskrit externally on the wheel. Also sometimes depicted are Dakinis, Protectors and very often the 8 auspicious symbols Ashtamangala. According to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, spinning such a wheel will have much the same meritorious effect as orally reciting the prayers.

I guess 'Create' is pretty much my mantra. Maybe they're little artistic prayer wheels. The fantastic Buddha stamp is from Vickie Enkoff and seemed to fit just perfectly.