Copper - Patina, Rivets and Stamping

And here is another patina project - a pair of earrings that speak to you. Well, at least if you believe in HOPE and LOVE, because that's what they "say"!
I have combined a number of different techniques to make this pair and I'm hoping to come up with more than this, since I really like the result.

I have used ammonia and salt to add patina to copper plates. I actually forgot about the experiment and left the metal "under influence" for longer than intended (2,5 days to be precise), so if you look closely enough, you might notice, that snippets of the metal have been eaten off by corrosion at the edges. But I don't mind, firstly this was my first experiment with patina, secondly I was trying to make the metal look aged anyway.
The patina was so thick I even had to remove some, otherwise it wouldn't hold on well even after spraying with clear paint. I had removed more patina from waht was going to be front side of the earrings and that created a nice effect of 2-coloured patina; red and green layers.

Then I've sprayed a clear paint over the plates, so the patina wouldn't come off or stain clothes. I have applied 2 coats on each side and let dry for several hours between the coats.

In the meanwhile, I have prepared 2 pieces of copper and stamped them with words HOPE and LOVE, one for each ear.

After the paint dried on the patinaed metal peices, I had to measure where to put holes for rivets and hammer the rivets on.

And then all I had to add were 2 handmade jumprings (how good does it sound, instead just jumprings) and earwires. Tadaa!


Here is front and back of the earrings:




Hope & Love... who's in?

Some Simple Earring Designs

I'm going to be traveling for a month now (so you won't see me around for a while) and I'm going to visit my family as well - so what better to bring to family and friends than a handmade gift! In my case jewellery :-))) - what else!
Most of the earrings from my previous post have somebody's name already written all over them. And here are just a few examples of SUPER simple designs that take just a moment to create - all you need is a wire, steel block, chasing hammer - and earplugs!

New Copper Earrings

My love-affair with COPPER seems to be never-ending! Well, there are several reasons for this - copper looks amazing, copper is in vogue right now and it's fairly inexpensive! And as if I needed another reason, I have lots of copper wire at home!
Remember my "trash stash" that I got from our Engineering? I got even more! Lots of discarded copper wire! It's rubber coated (like telephone wire) - so guess what I was doing for hours and hours while watching my fav TV programs? I think you got it: stripping my precious wires off their rubber clothes!

And here is what I've been working on recently:

Copper earrings with lots of copper beads.


Just wires - hand forged and hammered:


Swirls with copper beads:

And simple hammered swirls:

And this is just a bonus - next swirly earrings will be patina-coated! This is what ammonia with salt can do: