Happy Closet Pyro

Happiness Factor 1)  Butane torch = playing with fire

Found at Lowe's

Happiness Factor 2) = solder, to be used playing with fire

lead free solder... again, at Lowe's

Happiness Factor 3) Kobalt Flat Angle Hammer for pounding things!


have you guessed I love Lowe's?















Result = Major Happiness (and stress relief)

Hand stamped copper head pins.  Still in the practice stage

Okay, my first attempt at flattening out the copper headpins and stamping them.  Not sure if I like that I hammered a little way up the pin or not. Still need some practice on this.

pre-1980 pennies (copper) and two foreign coins
Hammered to a fare-thee-well and ready for stamping

Hammered the be-jabbers out of several old pennies. Pre-1980 pennies have the most copper in them (some early 1980's do, too, but why fuss with trying to find out which, eh?)  And two other coins that were foreign... sorry, don't remember from where. The larger one was of an Asian design, so either Japanese or Chinese.  I have plans to create a design and hammer/stamp them onto the coins and create a tribal-style necklace for my Ren-Faire character.  Keep watching to see how this goes.

Ahh... playing with fire and solder and a rubber stamp....
Hmmmm....

Now, THIS!  I found a tutorial by Gail of Can't Stop Making Things. Now, in her tutorial, she mentions two things: 1) you don't need to use flux for this solder project and 2) no, the rubber stamp won't melt. Well...
No, she's right about the stamp not melting. How-some-ever, if you get the solder TOO hot, it smells like it's melting (PHEW!). Make sure you open a door or window while doing this. Also, a fan going might help. (or, even, working outside!)  Part of my problem was, in all likelyhood, that I didn't  know exactly how hot to get the copper or how melted to get the solder. Or, even, how much solder to use (kind of a messy looking thing, isn't it?) so I'm still working on that learning curve. As for the flux, well, I had to use it but I'm wondering if it was because this copper round had already been beaten and textured. Again, learning curve.  I also tried a bit of scrap metal I believed was copper but, either it wasn't, I got the metal too hot or (again) it was textured and wouldn't hold. Ah, well, play and learn. Amiright?

Keep checking back and see how things (hopefully) continue to progress.

Pennies From Your Ears

Remember how Dad or Granpa or your favorite Uncle used to pull a coin (penny or otherwise) from your ear or behind your head when you were a kid? (actually, my Uncle John would "shove" the penny up one nostril and "pull" it from the other. Completely captivated my four year old self... much to my mother's consternation ~ yes, I tried it, too.... didn't really work for some reason...?)

Well........  this isn't that trick.  Sorry.  This trick is the one where I finally received my jewelry shot for my tumbler and played over the weekend.  Not a lot, but enough to make me ready to pound some more pennies into oblivion!  I raided the coin jar and pulled out every penny from 1980 and back and plan to release some frustrations later this week.

Any-hoo, here's what I made with the pennies I mentioned in my previous post:



Beaten, textured, stamped (find the fish), drilled and domed
Then I tossed 'em in the tumbler for a couple hours and this
is what came out. Not a sharp edge or burr anywhere!
LOOOOOOOOVE!


And a couple of shots of the finished product.  I made the balled copper headpins, too, by the way. The sea glass is from znetshows.com and I have lots more to figure out how to use! (hahahahaa!)  Anyway, the headpins also went through the tumbler and while this work hardened them and removed the firescale, it also removed the gorgeous pink you get when you drop the hot pins into the cold water. (sigh) Well, it's a trade, elbow grease to remove firescale and keep the rose pink or tumble and fuggedaboudit.  Anyway, these are fairly tribal-ish-y looking and I thought I might use them as part of my Ren-Faire character's costume this year. We'll see.... we'll see...

Oh, and, by the way (again), I'm on both Instagram and Webstagram for now. We'll see how they go with getting my jewelry out there. Look for me under (what else?) craziersister and feel free to "like" or "Pin" anything that catches your eye. It's a bit of a mix-mash of both my jewelry and my photography right now. Maybe later I can separate them out.
...and what have YOU been up to this week?

Table-Top Studio Update!

We took my table-top studio set back to the camera store my Mom bought it from and found out it was just a little short in the back of the lamp itself (not the cord). The guy helping us said he had a technician that worked in the store who could very likely fix it if we wanted to try that route first. Well, I'm all for the simple solution. He promised to call us when it was done (this was about 10:30 yesterday morning).

No calls.
All afternoon.
SO bummed. :(

Then, today, I get a message from Mom that the camera store had called her.  MY STUDIO LAMP IS FIXED! YAY!!  They'll get it for me this afternoon and I can set up some shots again tonight.  Woo HOO! Yes!  We'll see how things go, now.  Hopefully I'll have some creative pics to share soon.