Sealant quandary

I've spent last few weeks trying to find a good sealant for copper. I generally find people are using things like lacquer or wax as the way of sealing metal for jewellery. And that's where problems begin: someone throws name of some lacquer or something like that and that's it... but does that person know if it's safe for someone to wear item sealed with it? Because if it's safe for roofs, it doesn't necessary means that potential customer won't develop a nasty rush after wearing a piece of jewellery coated with it. Or, there is that great big "renaissance wax camp". Just one problem: waxes, and I assume it's true for the "wax of all waxes" too, tend to melt/soften in higher temperatures and human body gives of heat, after all. So it doesn't seem like a good way of preventing the green discolouration of the skin after wearing copper (and that's my main reason for researching sealants). Also, I recall reading something along those exact lines: that renaissance wax is great for sealing patinas (with the exception of fire patinas, but those are, partially, impossible to seal due to their nature), but doesn't prevent that green staining from developing.

And finally, the most frustrating thing for me: I managed to find three products that are supposed to be safe for wear, long lasting, preventing unwanted oxidisation and without tacky, artificial feel some other lacquers/sealants supposedly give to the piece, and... two of them are, apparently, impossible to find in the UK, and the third is available in a very limited range ( no spray, only liquid form) and expensive to boot. AAAAaaaaaaAAAAAA!!!!!!! I can happily slather some wax on the outside of, for example, pendant, but what about the side that faces the body? Or what about the chain, for that matter? Preventing oxidisation is fine for me, but I don't want my customers turning green ( and, I assume, most of them wouldn't want that either) and waxes apparently don't solve the problem, and good sealants are close to non-existing here. I swear, one more week like that, and I will go maaaaaaaad. Or a least madder than I already am
Ugh, I really needed to vent.

I hope your day is better than mine,
Kasia

Moon tree pendant and a feedback (finally!)

First and foremost: a bit late happy new year!

I had a really lazy Christmas and New Year break, and couldn't get myself back to work for a while ;P But I managed to stop doing... pretty much nothing ( well, that's not really true: I was reading. Copiously ) and made first ever pendant with bezel setting :) And I'm pretty happy with the result, even though I spent, I think, close to 6 hours working on said bezel - getting it to the right height required a lot of work, but it was worth it.

  And here it is. As I said, I really like how it turned out, even if it has a tendency to do weird things while photographed: like leaning to the side or twisting when suspended. And the stone is moonstone, by the way.

 

I shaped the pendant itself form art clay silver, and after drying it and firing, soldered on that bezel. I also made a bit of a mistake just after quenching and drying it... I wanted to make sure the bezel didn't get lopsided or... squished during placing and soldering it, so I put the stone in to see if it still fit inside... I wanted to drill a hole and cut an opening on the back, so the stone would have more light, but I didn't do it before placing the stone ( and I would like to point out that the piece was still not pickled and not oxidised at that point).

 Well, as it turned out, the bezel was still a good fit. Too good. The stone went in smoothly, but I couldn't get it out. I ended up drilling that hole in the back... by hand. I was holding the drill bit in my hand, and was really glad that it was fine silver, and not some harder metal. It took somewhere between half an hour and an hour, I think. 

After that, I was so glad to have the stone out, that I pickled and oxidised the pendant, polished it, and started setting the stone in place, and just then I realized that I didn't cut out the planned opening. So there is awkward hole on the back of the pendant instead of fancy cut out ;P But it served its purpose: the gave the stone more light while I was taking photos.
As it is a pendant, it won't matter while someone is wearing it - people, in general, are not translucent ;P

So that's about the pendant ( available here, by the way ) and now for something really nice for me:
finally, a customer who bothered with leaving feedback! Yay! She gave me 5 stars, and said this:
 "Beautiful! I love it and wear it all of the time. The craftsmanship is great. I look forward to buying from this artist again."

It's so cool to read something like that :D Also, I knew the item arrived safely - nice feeling, as opposed to wondering if it arrived, if the customer was happy, etc.

Till the next time!
Kasia

How NOT to anneal wires...

I could title this post also "Why you shouldn't lose focus while annealing " or maybe "Why you shouldn't anneal wires when you're tired"

This won't be a long post. I've decided to make not only the tree earrings, but also a matching necklace. I was finishing soldering the second earring, with only one element left to add. I had to anneal the wire, because it became too hard to properly shape. I started to heat the wire... and kept heating it... and heating... and looking at it, and thinking: "oooooh, those are some pretty lights running up an down that wire... and it looks as if those light are running inside it... and... wait a moment, why is this wire swelling??? Oh, damn, it's not swelling, I've just melted it."
And that is why you should never lose focus while annealing ;P
I'm just glad it wasn't the whole piece.

Just after the annealing fail

After pickling for better view

It's a piece of art on its own ;)

And if someone is wondering why the first thing I did after melting it was to take a picture... it was rather amusing experience, and I decided to document it ;P I also find the shape of that maltreated wire rather funny.

Tree earrings - work in progress

To quote one of my favourite books: "attention span of a teabag". From what I read and hear, many creative people share that problem. I was supposed to finish one necklace, and come back to work on a pendant, so of course I decided I just need to solder something, because it was sooo long since I've done anything using that technique...

Here it is just after I've finished all soldering. It was, quite possibly, still hot when I took  that picture.
I don't have that much experience with soldering yet, but work on this one went surprisingly easy. Sure, I've spent ridiculous amount of time on it, but I had to re-soldered joints in only to places. Actually, the most difficult part was probably soldering on that jump ring.

And this is how it looked just after I removed it from pickle - a lot of solder overspill. I wonder if I will ever manage to solder something nice and neatly, without those huge swatches to file or polish off. It comes with the practice, I suppose.

Oh, and in case you're wondering what is in that little plastic container - it's my solder paste. And yes, it does come in syringes, and it is supposed to stay there. And it usually does - until, that is, someone forgets to clean the needle after using it, and leaves it for several months... and then that someone tries to squeeze a little bit out and... creates a solder volcano, with the whole needle being launched into the ceiling, and syringe contents spilling all over the place. I was a bit worried it may not work as well as it did before all that happened... but it works equally well as that part that actually stayed in the syringe. I'm just glad I tend to collect different containers "just in case" and I had something to put that solder in ;)

It varies from the project, but most of my finished pieces do. I didn't feel like adding another tiny pieces, and I like the way it looks now.

And here it's after partial sanding to remove the excess solder. When I have both earrings soldered, I will probably copper-plate the solder that's left over.

I also plan to oxidise those earrings and then polish to create highlights.
And now I should go to work on the other one - which, at this time, is just hammered copper circle, and not even soldered one ;)

I hope I will finish it today, so I can finish that necklace...
And did I mentioned I'm really happy with how it turned out? ;)

Till the next time!
Kasia

Howling wolves earrings

This post will be quick one.
I have new earrings, and rather bad photos of them to show. The weather lately really isn't that good for photographing jewellery. Really, I used two light sources today, and I started taking pictures at noon! I will probably retake them in the near future.
Anyway, the earrings:

 

I've made the of raw copper sheet, that I've cut, filed, hammered and then oxidised to deep grey colour.

There is rather "strong" (sorry, I don't know if this is correct English word for it ) hammered texture. I like how it turned out.

The next step after oxidising was polishing, and then engraving.
I must say, I like the way the earrings look - the metal is rather shiny, and I like the results of engraving - especially the wolves. They look better in person then on the photos.

They are about 4cm long - 5,6cm if you count the ear wires - and weight just 1,8g each.
They are available here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/214955509/howling-wolf-engraved-copper-earrings

There will be also necklace to match them, but I haven't finish it yet. And I hope I will be able to take better pictures of them.

Oh, and I set up Twitter profile.

Till the next time!
Kasia

Copper necklace with cold enamel

I've finally finished a new piece! I've spent quite a bit of time working on it, and waiting for the epoxy hardener to arrive, so I could finish it off with adding cold enamel to it, but finally all of it is done. And I'm very happy with how it turned out.
Ta-daaaaaah!

I've made it entirely by hand, the only ready-made elements being the carnelian beads. The chain, and the pendant were made from scratch by me.

The necklace was loosely inspired by the early medieval Slavic jewellery. I had to adjust the design slightly - originally I wanted these... dots to go not only around the middle "resin nest" by also between each of those on the perimeter, but there wasn't enough place for them.

I've made the pendant using chasing and repousse technique. I was a bit afraid that the "nests" I created for the resin to go into won't be level, and that the enamel will overspill, but fortunately that was not the case.

Both the pendant and the chain were oxidised to deep grey colour and then polished to create highlights.

The chain alone took 4 hours to make! I'm not sure you can imagine how my hand felt once I've finished it ;) Anyway, here it is, ready to be sold in that very box you can see on that last photo :)
I love, love, love working with copper! I hope I will have something new to show soon :)
Till the next time!
Kasia.

Poinsettia earrings

I've just added new earrings to my etsy store today: polymer clay, handmade poinsettia earrings.

They are made of red, yellow and green fimo polymer clay, and dusted in several places with gold mica powder.

They were a pleasure to make, and the whole process didn't take much time - which is quite unusual, because by "the whole process" I mean from first design to complete finish.

 It was probably due to the fact that I was thinking about making something like this pair for some time now, so the final design came to me pretty fast - though I entertained two different approaches - and shaping, baking and adding finishing touches went really... smooth. ( or should it be smoothly?). All in all, I've finished them in about 2.5 - 2hours 45 minutes.

As always, I didn't use any moulds whatsoever, and the only ready made elements are silver-plated ear wires.
They are 2.8cm(4.5cm including ear wires) long and weight only 1.5g each. Poinsettia elements are approximately 2.3cm in diameter (due to their shape measuring was a bit tricky).

They are ready to be sold, and will come in a box like the one on the photo :)

I think they would make a nice little Christmas gift:) What do you think?

***
 Aaand I'm just happy to say that this weekend I sold one of two art clay silver pendants I had in my store. Yay! I dispatched the pendant today and I hope it will arrive safely to its new owner, and that said owner will be happy with her order :)

Till the next time!
Kasia