Tuesday, November 2, 2010

New Creations

I had some ideas the other day on something I could do with the sea glass I find while walking on the beach. I wasn't sure it could be done and if it could I was not sure it would be something I could do. So I started looking for videos about different things on youtube to see if I could find anyone else doing it. There are people doing it but no videos about them that I could find. I did find some other videos about things that had to do with it so I watched as many as I could. I also talked to Dave since he had some experience with the type of thing I wanted to do. After all of that I was thinking that it was something I wanted to try and at least see if I can do it.


Now to find a place to buy the supplies... hmm.. craft store... no... hardware store.. no... a stained glass store.. yes. I needed copper foil tape... what size or color backing I had no idea.. so I bought the stuff the lady said would work great.. turns out it is not so great for everything I want to do.. but I am guessing she had not used real sea glass.



I want to wrap each piece of sea glass in this foil tape and solder around the outside so that it is then wrapped in a pretty silver casing and solder on a jump ring. This sounds so easy.. and watching the videos of people making memory pendants it looked super easy. One thing I did not take into account is that the sea glass is not square or flat or even the same thickness on one side as the other. I also had no experience soldering. In the videos.. they make it look super easy... you just "paint it on" not me... well not when I started... I was going for the "painted on" look.. but was using the dab at it and poke method and it was not working so well.


This was my first attempt... I was so proud of it... now I am embarrassed lol

I have now made a whole lot of pendants... and can really tell a difference from the ones I first made and the ones I am making now. I have learned a lot too... and I see the door open for learning so much more. I need to try some different types of copper tape.. I read there is a black backed one for using with clear glass... I am going to try that next. I have a lot of white pieces of sea glass and the copper tape gives the pieces almost a pink color.. which is beautiful.. but not a true color of the glass. It seems to me that black would show up even more than copper... but I have been told it wont... we shall see :)



I have started listing some of the items in my shop and hope to be listing more soon.

~Michelle

3 comments:

  1. Michelle, I loved this post because it explains and shows your progression while working with a new medium. It must have been very frustrating at first. I am inspired to make a post based on "progression" and how wonderful things come from not giving up. The sea glass bracelet is lovely.

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  2. Thank you, I look back over the older posts on this blog and see a whole lot of progression in so many areas... it is nice to share it and nice for me to be able to go back and look through and see where I was and where I am ... really encourages me to keep going and explore new things and give them a try :)

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  3. Aha! I know about this (from doing stained glass for many years). After applying the foil to the glass, be sure to "burnish" the foil with a "fid" or a roller. It makes a huge difference in how the soldered edges will look. Here's a decent site: http://bit.ly/d0lRn8 And with the solder, see if you can find videos on "beading" so that the final look is rounding and not flat. It takes practice! Foiling/soldering uneven glass thickness is definitely challenging.

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