Maybe it was the long winter, or just an "itch" try something new, wherever the jewelry muse came from I followed it! It all started while surfing Pinterest (doesn't it always seem to start there!)
I discovered a technique where you stamp into molten solder with a rubber stamp and make these beautiful impressions. My head started to spin, and I thought how beautiful those would look on my leather purses and wallets. I took a class and did A LOT of reading, and I was ready to get started. Now all I had to do was convince my husband!
I wish I had taken a picture of his face when I asked him where he kept his solder, torch, and flux! The only way I can explain it is a look of "surprise" and "horror!" He was a trooper though and hooked me up. It didn't take long before I was immersed in a world of sanding, patina, metal cutters and steel wool. I didn't know you could do so many different things with metal. I've torched it, annealed it, stamped it, forged it; changed it's color with patinas and liver of sulpher, and cleaned it in a pickle pot! All this and I only set off the smoke alarm twice!
Eventually I had enough of these beautiful pieces completed. I took me a while to figure out how to secure them to my purses so in the meantime I made jewelry!
I just finished photographing and listing all these beautiful pieces on my website. You can view them all here.
As you can imagine, the metal stampings look beautiful on my leather bags, stay tuned, I will be photographing these and get them listed shortly!
I guess I just love to jump into something and get my hands dirty. Dirty is an understatement, my hands are a wreck, and with spring garden work around the corner I'm doomed!
I hope you love them as much as I do. Next on the "jewelry" agenda bangles and necklaces!
XO Brenda
