Hammered wire necklaces

I promised that I would post my wire necklaces. Well, I have mailed out these gifties with my pincushion mittens already. I did save one. So, here it is. You can click on the pict for a larger view. My next big project is learning how to do fold forming with copper. Let me know if have done this and if you like it.

What is Jax?

Jax is a chemical darkener. It is similar to liver of sulfur but it does not smell like liver of sulfur does. Volcano Arts sells something similar as well but I like the color that I get from Jax more.

http://www.jaxchemical.com/products.html Website

http://www.jaxchemical.com/jaxshop/shopexd.asp?id=53 This is what I used on the copper
sheet.


Hope that answered your question.

A lucky find

Finished necklace on my scanner. Click the pict for a larger view.
My son, Zack, took the two picts of me with the necklace on.
Closer view of the awesome heart.

I was at the Bead and Button Show a couple of weekends ago with my daughter. One of the booths was from Zoa Arts. http://www.zoaart.com/index.html

I found this fabulous heart made from shibuichi. They tell you what it is on their website. Loving it because it looks so distressed and it has that copper/gold/grey tinge. Wishing there were some local workshops on how to do this shibuichi thingie. It will come with time. Patience is usually not one of my virtues when it comes to art.

Well, I finally took some time to put together the necklace part. I borrowed the leather strap thing from the artist, Lisa. She had the heart on a necklace with a brown leather strap. I liked the black. The leather is from part of an old wallet that fell apart. The crap I save. Anyhoo, I used bits and pieces that I had laying around. The most important component here were the copper jump rings that I got from eBay. I have been buying them in bulk from Hong Kong/China. They really do come in handy.

I wore it today while I went to lunch with the folks and my kids. I got 2 compliments while dining. I ran some errands afterwards and the bookseller at Barnes & Noble was really groovin' on it. I got stopped at Target as well. Looks like this necklace is a huge success. It is very wearable and I am lovin' it. Thanks, Lisa at Zoa Art!

The other three 6" panels

Info in the following post. Elizabeth and friend, hope you like them!

6" panels for a private swap

Just wanted to post my final results. We got the idea from a Quilting Arts issue. I offered it as a swap in one of my groups but did not get a good response. Elizabeth, a friend of hers, and I are doing 2 squares for each person so we end up with 6 including our own. I did not exactly stick to the color scheme for mine, so I made an extra panel in case the other two were too busy for what they wanted to create with it. I got a little delayed in doing it with my sister's passing. I also had the end of school. I lost my muse for a couple of weeks. It is slowly coming back. She is dipping her big toe back into the water. My muse is slowing wading back in.

Peek at my squares

I am in a private swap. Here are two of my six squares. Just wanted to share before I delete the scans off my hard drive. What I love about private swaps is that I know that the quality of what I get back will be as good (or even better!) than what I have sent out. I know that most people put a lot of work into their swaps. You have to admit though that you will sometimes get those one or two pieces that look slapped together - glue is all over it, not dried yet, stinky, or one sticker is stuck on as the focal point. I also like the smaller quantity. I get to do more with it. Even though sometimes less is more. Yes, rambling now. Need tea and snackie before beddy-bye. BTW, even though my current love affair is with fabric, I can't get away from metal. Metal will always be my best friend.

more 2x2 metal samples

These are new. I just finished the 10 mil copper sheet ones this morning. If you want a more detailed view, then just click on the pict.

For the 10 mil - which I got from basiccopper.com. I took a large piece and painted it with copper Lumiere. Two coats, dry in between layers. I gave it a blast with my heat gun to make sure it would stick to the metal. So far, it is holding up really well. Used coarse sand paper and a paper clip to get the roughness and little nicks. I cut the squares out using a 2" square template cut from matboard. I rounded the corners with scissors. I sanded so the edges would not be too sharp. I used a hot glue gun and some metal scraps for the focal images. I also had some other little doo hickies that I added on. Sometimes, the hot glue gun will not work and will slide off when dry. That happened with some of them. I just used some liquid glue and stuck it back on. I was going for grungy, so I used some fluid acrylics on top of the metal to complete the look.

Swap sign-ups in the Mixed Media Art Friends group still open. You can see where I punched the hole and put in an eyelet for the binding ring. You are welcome to do this technique for your 2x2s. I am sure that you will have a very different piece from mine. I love seeing other people's perspectives!

Comments welcome.

2x2 metal samples

Just did these two samples for the swap. Not sure if done yet. Just really sleepy right now. Nighty night for now. Instructions to come later. The left one was done with the sandwich thing in my Wizard.

Ball Chain Bracelets in all 3 colors now available at skybluepink.com!

http://www.skybluepink.com/beads.html Scroll down just a bit to find it. Do the "Click Here" thing - the charm bracelets shown are MINE! If you got some ball chain from me, please do not email me about how much it cost from me. Christina buys in bulk, thus her cost was less than mine. At the time I made the buy, I was not sure she was going to supply it. Since she is supplying it now, I will get it from her instead of doing a bulk buy. I wear all three colors on my wrist.