Bronze Swellegant - Week 9/52 Earrings

 Been busy with some early spring cleaning... starting with the bookshelves.  I can't believe that I actually am saying this, but I have too many books! I have a set of shelves for them, but it is up on the wall above a desk. Hard to get to without a ladder.  Any book I get down, I have a hard time getting back into the ranks as the books collapse in on themselves.  I want to move them to a more convenient  location but in order to do so, DH says that we have to weed out and  ::choke:: get rid of  other books to make room.  Let me explain ....  I LOVE my books, they are like old friends that I visit again and again. I have gotten rid of books in the past that I regretted, some went out of print (still looking for the 5th book in the "True Game" series).  *sigh*  ... at least we get store credit at Page Two. 

This has been a very hard task, but if I want more room in the studio.... I must persevere.  Lord Opuson reminds me that there is always the library ....

Since I have been busy lately, I stayed simple with my weekly earring design.  I used discs from the Swellegant experiments.  I really like the look of Verdigris patina on the Bronze discs.

Swellegant

I love Christi Friesen, so when she talked about a product that would help to simulate metal on polymer clay AND give it a real patina look, I was very curious.  Then I saw some lovely pieces on Flickr by various artists who were working with it  (esp Randee aka ketztx4me), and I knew I just had to try it.   A quick visit to CF Originals and several anxious days waiting by the mailbox ... and I was ready to play.

I sprung for the whole kit, as it would be cheaper in the long run.  Look how much came packed in the box. There are 5 metal coatings, 3 patinas, a TON of dyes, application material and a sealer. If I had one complaint, I wish that the bottle of sealer was bigger.  I can see me going through sealer quickly.

My first tests were to see how the patinas reacted with various metal coatings.  I started with Brass, Copper and Bronze.  Silver and Iron will have to wait a while.  I made them in duplicate so they would make good earrings if I liked how they looked.  Learned an important lesson here which I will pass on to you.  If you want to make two pieces look the same - when you are ready for the final coat and patina, do both pieces at the same time. Otherwise the timing will be off and the intensity of the patina will not be the same.  (See if you can find which pair I learned this lesson on)

LOVE THIS COMBO!

Some day I will figure out how to put two pictures side by side on blogger.  I am so excited about the possibilities and I haven't even tried the dyes yet!