I've been dying to mix more metal with my jewelry, but metal clay isn't exactly conducive to making flat, uniform shapes, at least in my experience. Not only that but using it does make me feel limited, so I've decided to experiment with other things. To start, I bought some metal wire in both sterling silver and brass and made some stacking rings. I also bought some brass sheet metal to experiment with, a jewelry saw, blades, etc. After doing a little bit of research I was confident enough to take a stab at this sawing metal thing and had at it with some paper prototypes that I drew up and cut out.
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| The earrings right after I cut them out of the brass sheet. |
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I placed the paper cutouts on the metal and drew on it with a sharp clay cutting tool which was probably a bad idea, but I didn't like the Sharpie smearing all over the place. Then I started to saw which really does take getting used to. I think that this will definitely get much easier with practice, but right now it takes me kind of awhile because I have to stop often. So far I've made two pairs of earrings. The earrings in this post are the second pair I've made. I haven't posted the first pair yet because I'm still trying to decide which metal to use for the ear wires. I might post them soon though.
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| finished. |
I added these little dangly resin shapes, which was my plan from the beginning but I am not sure that I'm 100% satisfied with them. For right now these will my for my own personal wear. I'll be revising the design in the future to put in my shop. The drilled holes are a problem because I didn't allow much space for them and one of the earrings broke after I tried to widen the hole. Luckily I soldered them back together and managed to make them look decent. The design is intentionally imperfect and organic shaped by the way. I think it's a little more interesting this way.
Kind of off topic, I think I'm going to have to post a photo of my glitter collection soon. It really deserves it's own post. I'd use the word epic to describe it but I'd rather not.
5 comments:
Beautiful!
I just recently purchased some brass sheet as well. Until now, it's been all sterling silver and copper in my designs (and a bit of gold).
PS - Regarding the saw - practice makes perfect, give it time! :)
I will - I can tell that it's something that needs practice. It's so awkward to use at first but I do like it. Plus it's nice to have more options to design with. I'm going to get some silver once I'm 'good' with the brass. Is it any different to work with since brass is so soft?
the outcome looks pretty :)
Hello,
I will really appreciate your innovation and efforts. The ear ring that you have been made with metal are looking very very amazing to me. I have also such kind of ear ring but those are made of gold.
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