Custom Eyelet/Brad Colors

Posted by Khris in Crafting Advice

This query came in from one of our readers. We’re delighted to have an easy solution for her!

Q: I”m hoping you can help! I’m using eyelets and brads to attach my invitation pieces together. The problem is that I need colors that match my invitations and I can’t find any. I tried painting one with acrylic paints and that didn”t work. The paint just fell off when I was attaching the pieces. Any ideas?

A: Kudos to you for being so crafty! The paint idea is still a good one. You may want to try a spray paint or an enamel paint. Some companies make an enamel medium (Plaid comes to mind) that you can mix with acrylics to make an enamel-like paint. This may adhere better to the metal eyelets and brads.My other suggestion is to use rubber stamping embossing powders. This is simple and works great! I’ve tried this with brads, but not eyelets, though I suppose it will work just as well. You’ll need embossing powder of your color choice, a heat gun, and a pair of long-nosed tweazers to hold the brad while you’re heating it.

Step 1: Open your jar of embossing powder.
Step 2: Clamp the stem of your brad/eyelet in your tweazers.
Step 3: Heat the top of your brad/eyelet under your embossing gun for 5 – 10 seconds.
Step 4: Dip the brad/eyelet into the embossing powder while it’s screamin’ hot. Pull out immediately.

Voila! The embossing powder should immediately melt on the brad. If not, give it a quick blast from your heat gun.

For eyelets, you may want to use a shallow container or just a piece of paper to put your embossing powder on. This will help keep the color just on the rim of the eyelet and not coat the whole thing.

Good Luck!