Well? Have you? If you haven’t, and like me, you like your bodily adornments to be large, loud and nerdy, consider Zap Creatives your new habit.
So the photo above is of my current owns from Zap Creatives. Like Craft Jam, Zap Creatives do laser cut acrylic jewellery. They offer ready designed items or their custom service. Having not used the custom items service, yet (I’m hoping to eventually get some +10Kapow charms made up at some point when my pockets and purse aren’t regularly filled with dust) I honestly couldn’t tell you how much overall that would cost. What I can tell you, is that their pre-designed items are cheap as chips. So cheap, that even paupers like us can have a little splurge and not feel guilty.
Having run out of comic themed items to buy from Craft Jam, I started looking around for a new site to start buying from. I’m pretty sure (this was quite a while ago) after tweeting about my search, Zap Creatives started following me, on Twitter, not in a weird stalkery kind of way (although I can’t imagine a little Zap Creatives logo with arms and legs following me handing me laser cut charms would be a bad thing).
That’s when I had a look, bought my first one and decided to collect them all. Well, the nerdy ones at least.
I haven’t bought loads but let me show you what I have bought so far, after the jump, because this is a wordy post.
So I’m doing them in the order that I bought them and the first 2 charms are ones that you have to put together yourself. The first one- the Comic Book Cameo Frame is under the ‘make it yourself’ section but I call them the de-constructed ones.
There are 6 colours available for the actual front frame part so I opted for the black one.
For the Comic Book Cameo, I had to buy one of these Cameo Inserts, of which there are 8 to choose from in the oval design. You can also make your own custom printed acrylic cameo charm for this item.
Each piece arrived with a film over it and some of the cuts in the smoke clouds still had their little pieces in them which I just had to pop out.
They don’t come with any instructions on how exactly they go together, but it’s pretty easy to work out and if you are still struggling, all you have to do is look at the item image on the website.
I’m not sure if there is any particular type of glue that you are supposed to use, so I just used Fast Dry Superglue. In hindsight, I would recommend not using a fast dry one, just in case you place it together wrong (see de-constructed charm no. 2).
And here it is all stuck together. It fits together perfectly, apart from a tiny gap down the right side of the cameo insert but that isn’t noticeable unless you are investigating it. The whole charm is 7.2cm x 7.2cm at the tallest/widest points, so it’s pretty big and makes quite an impression. I have had quite a few compliments when I have worn this one.
This was the second charm that I purchased, the Pow! Explosion Charm. Again this is a de-constructed charm and I had to pop out a few of the bits left in the cuts but no biggie.
All 3 pieces of this one comes together in one pack so no extras needed.
This is mine fully constructed and glued. Yep, all glued with super fast drying super glue. Soooooo, by the time I realised that I couldn’t see the loop at the top for the jump ring to go through and checked the item image on the website, it was all too late, that glue was good and stuck and there was no way I was pulling that apart. And I feel like a proper numpty, it’s a very simple process and I managed to fluff it, so just in case, stay away from the fast dry superglue.
Fully constructed this one is about 4.5cm x 4.5cm, so it’s not much larger than half the Comic Book Cameo charm but it is still very eye catching and with the 3 layers the POW! really pops out.
Ok, so I’d received my first 2 items and they had pretty much gone without a hitch, time for a full site browse and bookmarking everything I want.
That was when Iron Man appeared and made me buy him, it, not him, it.
It may look like a simple charm but turn it sideways and……..
……..ahhhhh naked nails. No, turn it sideways and you can see it is a double layered charm with gold mirrored acrylic in the centre and blue mirrored eyes. It’s fab and looks great on, I mostly wear this one paired with my Stark Industries tee because I’m sad like that.
This charm is about 4cm x 7cm but with that mirrored acrylic, it catches the sun and catches all the eyes.
So what could be next? Well, Star Wars mirrored acrylic charms of course.
I’m like a magpie, shiny, sun catching acrylic, yes please. So after receiving the Iron Man charm with the mirrored acrylic, I went on a new mission to see what nerdy charms I would like to have and that were available, in the mirrored acrylic.
The answer was Star Wars. The AT-AT and R2-D2 to be exact. If you thought the first 3 were awesome then feast your peepers on these.
Look at the detailing. I absolutely love these ones. These are 2 of my favourite necklaces ever and the sun bounces off them like one of those sun catchers people used to hang in their windows.
Most of the time they look like the first AT-AT picture, like a greyish tone but then when the sun comes out they look like this silvery tone and all the details stand out really nicely.
The AT-AT measures around 6.5cm x 5.5cm so is a good size and R2-D2 is about 3.5cm x 6cm. If you like these, they also have an X-Wing charm, I’m really hoping they do a gold mirrored C3PO soon.
This is my most recent buy, the Zelda Triforce Style Pendant Charm. Isn’t it beautiful?
This one is a double layer charm with black acrylic and a gold mirrored upper layer. Yes, I know, mirrored again, but they’re so pretty. The double layers on this one are pretty thick, making it the sturdiest of the lot.
This one measures about 6cm x 5cm.
As you can see, the quality and detail on these charms are pretty much perfection and well worth the money that you pay for them. The service was fab and each one turned up really quickly, wrapped well and without a scratch on them. I really recommend them if you like this sort of jewellery too.
Prices of each item:
Comic Book Cameo Frame: I paid £3.00: Currently on sale for £2.26
Comic Book Cameo Inserts: I paid £1.50 each
Pow! Explosion Charm: I paid £2.50: Currently on sale for £1.87
Iron Man Pendant Charm: I paid £3.60
AT-AT Walker Pendant Charm: I paid £2.20: Currently on sale for £1.64
R2-D2 Pendant Charm: I paid £2.20: Currently on sale for £1.87
Zelda TriForce Style Pendant Charm: I paid £3.60
I had no idea some of the items were on sale until right this second, while writing this post, so I’m going to see what else is on sale.
They also sell jump rings and chains for if you are buying charms and having nothing to hang them on. These are really cheap, they come in bags of 100, different sizes and most of the sizes are under £1.
Let me know if you buy anything from Zap Creatives after reading my post, would love it if you tweet me pictures of them when they arrive.
:)x
