Call of Cthulhu

As I am still in Jewelry class at Yavapai College I wanted to try something new. The teacher showed us one day about 'overlay'. I guess you can also call it sweat soldering.
So of course, my first thought is that I'd like to do a baby Cthulhu. Why not?
I took pics as I went along so I could share with you but am going to show the finished product first.

Cute, right? Well, it's not perfect, but it's a learning piece.....
What I did first was pick a super cute photo off the internet and tried to draw it.
Not so easy as I am not that great of a artist with the pencil. Then glued it on the copper. Next is cutting out the piece with the jeweler's saw.

I liked the little oval eyes, but after using the drill press to do the eyes, I just kept them round. Still looked cute, and darn it, it was just easier that way.

I used files and sand paper to smooth the edges and clean it up a bit. Then added the Sharpie marker to get ready to etch it. This was something new for me too. I see a lot of cool etchings on Pinterest and such and finally bought the chemical to do it. Sorry about the glare on this picture, but you get the idea.

With the etching acid, I put packing tape on the back of the piece so that doesn't etch. It goes face down in the plastic container. The Sharpie is the 'resist' and the rest of the piece will be etched by the acid.

Success! I was really pleased with how this turned out!  Just used a little bit of steel wool to clean it up and it looks great.

No comes the hard part. I need to solder that cute little thing onto the piece of brass that I have ready. It took a couple times but then it worked. Problem was, I forgot to put white-out on the top to stop the solder from going up there. Also, it turned pink and I didn't know why. Sorry, no picture of that. My teacher told me to put it in a 50/50 mix of silver pickle and hydrogen peroxide. Worked pretty well after about 10 minutes.

After cleaning I dipped in liver of sulfur to get the blackened look.  So, that's how I got my finished product. Not good enough to sell, but I like it enough to keep.

Lotus Copper Bracelet

Hi there,
It's been 1 year and 8 months since my last blog entry. Thought I would try to pick it up again and am bringing you the process of making a copper cuff bracelet for a dear family friend of mine.

First I drew the lotus flower on the copper with a sharpie pen-

After drilling some holes with my husbands drill press, I start with the jewelers saw and cut out what is necessary-

When done with the saw, I used small files to clean it up a bit. The image is done-

                                   
I then do some hammering for texture-

Now the fun part. Using the torch for color. It is very random and you never know what is going to happen. I went over it a few times to try to get kind of an even array of color-

Next is the bracelet mandrel to shape it into a bracelet-

Done!-

I love working with metal and am still learning. Thank you to all the family and friends that support my business and help to encourage me :)