2 New Resin Bottlecap Pendants

I have been working on a new beadwoven bracelet for a few weeks now, and I like it - I like the colors, I like the pattern, but now that I have done one repetition of the pattern (there are about 12 repetitions in the finished bracelet), I am mind-numbingly bored with it, and just want it to be DONE WITH IT. Not the first time a tedious peyote pattern has affected me this way (I even have one in my Zombie box that is 6 years old: it is so tediously repetitive, with a really hard-to-read pattern graph, that I doubt I will ever finish it. It will probably remain 3/4 inch long forever!) Do y'all ever get this way? So attracted by a bright, shiny, new project, you have to dive right in, only to find it bores you to tears?

Anyway, I work on the new bracelet for an hour or so, and need a break. Yesterday I just couldn't even stand to work on it, so I started something new.

I had found these cute bottlecap bezels at Michael's a couple of years ago, and decided I needed to buy them and squirrel them away, because someday I'd figure out what to do with them.

I stumbled across them again when I taught the Cold Connections Workshop last month, and figured that if I'm never going to use them myself, maybe I should work them into a class, so I started thinking on some different ideas for a new class.

We already offer Ice Resin classes, so I wanted to go in a different direction - maybe with embossing powder? Who knows; give it a whirl, anyway.

So, fully and completely bored with my peyote bracelet, I put the seed beads away, and started trying to figure out what to try in my bottlecap bezels. I punched holes in each one for hanging, since they didn't come pre-punched.

resin bottlecap pendants

The bezels came in 2 colors: white (with a funky zebra design on the back) and antique copper.

The zebra one could obviously be reversible, so I decided to use black and white objects in the bezel. I played around with lots of different thing, but only 3 objects really fit in the cup at a time, and while I liked the cute brads (lower right, with the zebra pattern) - and had them in an assortment of 6 different black and white designs (another scrapbooking item I had impulsively purchased at Michael's and hoarded away) - no matter how I arranged them in the cup, they looked like a face staring back at me: 2 eyes, and an open mouth. Ugh.

I found some pink and white zebra striped scrapbook paper (you know the drill: another squirreled-away impulse buy from Michael's), and liked how it echoed the zebra print on the back of the cap, so I cut out a circle of it and placed it in the cup. I looked around for other black and white stuff; what I really wanted was a feather, but alas, I didn't have any feathers - at least, not in black - squirreled away. I finally chose a black button with a sparkly rhinestone center, and a half-drilled freshwater pearl. I carefully placed these on the paper in the cup, and filled the cup with clear embossing powder.

The antique copper cup was much easier - I had these pretty paper scrapbooking flowers, and fit them into the cup, and then added some ground-up malachite that I had made for a previous foray into resin bezels. (The pendant I made during that class, with the ground malachite, sold right away, and didn't even make it to the blog post!). The idea was for the flowers to look like a flowering tree (they were supposed to be pink dogwoods), and the malachite is the grass underneath them. When I was ready to pour the embossing powder into the cup, I noticed that I had carefully put everything into the bezel without noting the hole placement, and they were in there almost perfectly upside down. So I rearranged them, and poured in the powder.

Using my embossing gun, I heated them from the back, and they both liquefied fairly quickly:

waterlily pendant

The paper flower bezel generated a LOT of air bubbles - not sure why. I really like the end result - it looks like waterlilies on a pond to me, very Monet.

pink zebra resin pendant

My pink zebra cup didn't bubble, and once it cooled, I noticed that the scrapbooking paper had a glitter effect on it, which has given a very sparkly look to the pendant. Love it!

pink zebra pendant, reverse side

This is the back of the pink zebra pendant: The center has discolored a tiny bit from the intense heat of the embossing gun.

I think this will make a pretty fun class, and something students can easily do on their own at home, with minimal supply outlay!

And now that I have wasted 2 hours taking pics and creating this blog post, I am going to try to slog my way through another inch or so on that peyote bracelet!

I've been Resinating!

I have been playing around with Ice Resin, making some resin jewelry. It's fun, and fast (except for the 3-day cure time!) - and a neat way to use found objects, photos, and other trinkets.

These are a few pieces I have created:

In this piece, I used a bottlecap for the bezel, and painted it blue with my beloved alcohol inks. I lined the bottlecap with some funky scrapbooking paper, then decided to go a little meta, a little upcycle-y, and put a pop-tab in the bottlecap bezel. I added some scrapbooking flowers, and I threw in a gear. Going for little steampunk, too, I guess. Poured in the resin, and 3 days later, I finished it with a copper jumpring that I also painted blue with alcohol ink. I really like how this pendant turned out! 

This one has a bronze-colored simulated wood-grain bezel, and I filled it with gears, paper flowers, and Martha Stewart glitter!! Ooh-la-la! And then poured in the resin, and voila!

For this pendant I used the same bronzy wood-grained bezel, and added several gears, on top of some shiny copper-colored DMC cross-stitching floss, and more Martha glitter.

 For this pendant, I used a silver-toned bezel, and added a green quilled paper butterfly, and shiny blue Martha glitter. I finished it with a matching green satin cord, so it is ready to wear.

I made lots more, and may post them later. It is a fun, and easy, project, and I will gradually be listing them on Etsy.

And now, back to work on my Bead Soup Blog Party Creation. That necklace won't make itself, you know!! Time is running out! Eeeek!

More Art Clay Silver, and a Little Venting

Before I get into the meat of this post, may I just vent for a moment about how irritating the blogger login process is?

First of all, I carefully copy and paste my e-mail address in, because if I type it in, blogger ALWAYS rejects it as invalid.

Then I carefully type in my password, and without fail, blogger tells me it is invalid, and makes me type it again. I mean, every time, every single time. They do the same thing to Bailey. What is the deal?

But this is my favorite: Then I get the error page, that tells me this:
"Your browser's cookie functionality is disabled. Please enable JavaScript and cookies in order to use Blogger."
Which of course is complete horseshit, because my cookies ARE enabled, and then I have to go to my favorites and click back to my blog page, and now I am logged in. Blogger login sucks.

OK, I'm done.

I've taken a lot of classes since the last time I posted, so here is the scoop:

I told you I was going to take a few more Art Clay Silver classes, and I have.
A couple of weeks ago, I took Enameling on Art Clay Silver. Our class projects were a pendant and a pair of earrings. In this picture, the organic binder in my pendant burns off in the kiln.

This picture shows everyone's projects firing in the kiln. This stage takes 8 to 10 minutes. Once the pieces have fired, we will sand them, and then apply the enamel. Did you know that enamel is glass? I didn't, until this class, that is!

Yep, the enamel is actually fine particles of glass that we fuse to the metal.

This is my pendant, after it fired. I had just finished brushing it with this wire brush, so all the silver molecules are now "standing at attention." Prior to brushing, it looked like a piece of pottery.

Here are both projects, right before I started applying the enamel.

They are sitting on the different sanding cloths used to smooth them.

There are 2 different ways to apply the enamel. (That's why we had 2 class projects!) One way is called sifting, and that is how we enameled the earrings. Fine, dry particles of glass frit are placed in a very small sifter, and sprinkled over the pieces, just like sifting powdered sugar over a cookie.

The other enameling method is called Wet-Pack, and I forgot to take a picture of it. In this technique, the fine glass frit is mixed with a small amount of distilled water to make a slurry, which is then applied with a very small paint brush to your piece. This technique gives you more control over where your color ends up. Whichever technique you use, the piece is fired in the kiln again, to fuse the enamel to the silver.

I used the Wet-Pack technique on my pendant, so in this picture of my finished projects, you can see that the color is applied just in the swirl design on the pendant. Where I sifted enamel onto the earrings, I got a more widespread color effect.

These techniques can be combined, but that's too advanced for me!

This past Saturday I took an Advanced Art Clay Silver Class, where the project was a pendant with a bezel-set cabochon.

Initial prep of the clay is the same as with other Art Clay Silver Projects, but preparing the bezel is tedious, and must be done first (so your clay doesn't dry out). The bezel is formed from 28-gauge fine silver, and must be measured to fit the cabochon fairly precisely. Silver oil paste is used to "glue" the bezel's seam together temporarily.

Once the bezel is done, the clay is prepared, and the bezel is pressed into the clay. The pendant is dried prior to firing - the clay can be allowed to dry overnight, or drying can be sped up by using a mug warmer.

Once the piece is dry, it goes into the kiln. Here is a shot of the organic binder in my pendant burning off - that is my favorite part!

After firing, the stone is placed into the pendant, and then the fun begins (not really). The next step is bezel rolling, and this was my least favorite part. The bezel must be carefully fit to the stone in order to hold the stone in place, and this step requires 2 tools and a lot of hand and finger/thumb strength. I do NOT have a lot of strength in my hands, and this step was very difficult and painful for me.

Starting at the bottom of the bezel, a bezel-roller is pressed all around the stone to snug the stone in place. This is repeated at the top of the bezel. Then, a curved metal burnisher is used to roll the top of the bezel over the stone to really hold it in place and give it a nice finished look. This was absolutely a nightmare for my hands and thumbs.

We then painted diluted liver of sulfate on the Art Clay Silver, to give an oxidized look to the pendant. We painted, rather than dipping the pendant in the liver of sulfate, because you don't want to get the liver of sulfate on the bezel or on your stone. Following the liver of sulfate, the piece is polished.

This picture shows my pendant after the liver of sulfate but before polishing.

This is my finished pendant, after polishing.

And that's it for Art Clay Silver today!

I started this post over 3 hours ago. I had the (usual) technical problems logging in, and the (usual) issues with picture uploading - I don't know why the pics can't just load where you want them to, instead of loading at the top of the page, and having to be dragged. Good grief. And one backspace too many, and you delete a photo, and have to upload it again, which I only had to do FIVE times today. Then, Blogger crashed in the middle of my post, and was down for 20 minutes. All this whining is to get to this: poor, long-suffering, patient Bailey has been sitting beside me for an hour and a half, begging to go outside. He alternately gets up and growls, noses my left hand, and then sits back down in the exact same position, then starts all over again in 2 or 3 minutes. And I kept thinking I would be finished ANY minute, so I made him wait. Bad Mom! I don't feel too guilty, though, because I finally gave in about 10 minutes ago, and, as I suspected, all he wanted was to go bark at the workers next door again. He can be very manipulative!