Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Click here for part 1 of this story.
When I left off yesterday, I was telling you about these really stubborn earrings that didn't want to stay in place the way I wanted them to. I didn't want to scrap the earrings, so I needed to find a solution.
But before I tell you what I did, let me backtrack a bit.
Silver is expensive. I've been working with it for a while and have lots of little pieces that can't be used: tiny clippings, ends of wires too small for anything, and "mistakes" that have to be shelved.
All this time, I've carefully collected these bits of silver with the thought of recycling them -either by selling they back to a supplier or melting them down to be reused.
While I'm not into casting (YET!!!), it's easy enough to melt down small bits of silver into little spheres. I've done it before and have been thinking about incorporating them into my work.
These melted-down spheres are REALLY solid and REALLY heavy. I thought to myself, why not use them to weigh down my earrings so they stay EXACTLY the way they're supposed to.
So that what I decided to do.
My 13 year old daughter, Emma, was more than happy to sit in the garage with a propane torch and melt down pieces of silver into balls. (She thought it was so much fun that she probably would have been willing to PAY ME for the opportunity! LOL) After they were made, I was more than happy to try to incorporate them into the earrings.
And, after some trial and error, I was able to get the silver spheres soldered on the bottoms of the hoops, weighing them down.
But before I tell you what I did, let me backtrack a bit.
Silver is expensive. I've been working with it for a while and have lots of little pieces that can't be used: tiny clippings, ends of wires too small for anything, and "mistakes" that have to be shelved.
All this time, I've carefully collected these bits of silver with the thought of recycling them -either by selling they back to a supplier or melting them down to be reused.
While I'm not into casting (YET!!!), it's easy enough to melt down small bits of silver into little spheres. I've done it before and have been thinking about incorporating them into my work.
These melted-down spheres are REALLY solid and REALLY heavy. I thought to myself, why not use them to weigh down my earrings so they stay EXACTLY the way they're supposed to.
So that what I decided to do.My 13 year old daughter, Emma, was more than happy to sit in the garage with a propane torch and melt down pieces of silver into balls. (She thought it was so much fun that she probably would have been willing to PAY ME for the opportunity! LOL) After they were made, I was more than happy to try to incorporate them into the earrings.
And, after some trial and error, I was able to get the silver spheres soldered on the bottoms of the hoops, weighing them down.I still wanted the earrings to look organic. The hoops are free form and have been hammered to make them look like they're almost drooping. Therefore, I didn't want the spheres to be symmetrical. Instead, I placed different sizes in different locations.
Also to compliment these spheres , I made earwires from silver wire that had one end balled up by placing it in a flame.
After all this, I had to re-sand the earrings with increasingly finer grits of sandpaper, then tumble them with steel shot in a tumbler so that the earrings really shine.
Overall, I think they didn't turn out too badly - for a mistake.
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-10oneworld
~M
here's my latest "mistake"
http://solsisters.blogspot.com/2008/11/rescue-at-sea-naida-clutch.html
{{{hugs}}}
Freida
http://dmwashopnotes.blogspot.com/
You can read more about Avenue7 at blog.avenue7.com too.
Have a nice day!
I'll list them in my shop later. But I haven't decided if I'm going to make anymore of these.
They were so much trouble, it's going to be a while before I want to go back to them.
Happy Crafting,
Chyrls
And you have a sweet daughter for wanting to help her Mom.