Make a Resin Bottle Cap Charm
Posted by Leah on Oct 2, 2008
Using bottle caps as bezels for resin is a great way to make jewelry without spending a lot of money on materials. If you are just starting to work with resin, I recommend using bottle caps for your practice pieces - they are free, and you probably have some lying around your house. Plus it’s recycling!
Here’s what you will need:
- two-part epoxy resin
- clean, dry bottle caps
- newspaper or plastic bags to cover your workspace
- scissors
- glue (I use mod podge)
- paper
- small found objects, bits of hardware, beads, glitter, or whatever else you hav that is small enough to fit inside the bottlecap
- drill & small drill bit (1/16 inch or smaller) (optional)
- water or other lube for drill (if using a drill)
- wire (16, 18, or 20g is what I would use)
- round nose pliers
- flat nose pliers
- wire cutters
- safety gear, including good ventilation & a respirator so you don’t breathe in the resin fumes
Now here’s what you do:
- Prepare your workspace: protect it with newspaper, or plastic such as plastic grocery bags.
- If using an image for a background, cut the image out to fit in the bottle cap & glue it down. Let glue dry completely before moving on.
Bottle Cap Charms After Gluing
- Arrange your objects, glitter, etc in the bottlecap
- Mix the resin according to the manufacturer’s instructions and use a small stirring stick such as a popsicle stick or wooden coffee stirrer to drip just enough resin into the bottle cap to completely cover your objects and/or collaged image. Be careful not to overfill the bottle cap because cleaning up spilled resin is really not fun - trust me.
- Let the resin cure - this could take up to 72 hours - you may want to put something like an upside down pie pan over your pieces while they cure, so that they don’t get dust stuck to the surface
Bottle Cap Charms with One Resin Layer
- If you are happy with the look of the piece, you are ready to drill or wrap it. If it looks like it needs more resin, you can pour a little more and let it cure again. I like to do two layers of resin so that I can place objects on top of the first layer, giving the piece a little more depth.
Once your final resin layer has cured, you are ready to make these into something. A few ideas:
- Drill a hole near the top & insert a jump ring or bail to make a pendant or charm (tutorial coming soon!)
- Wire wrap it to use as a pendant or charm (tutorial coming soon!)
- Glue it to a ring finding, brooch finding, or magnet
Learn to Make Earrings
Posted by Leah on Oct 1, 2008
I will be teaching a mini earring intensive in May 2009 at Art, Paperie and Pleasantries - and you can take the class, materials included, for just $15 (or free, if you register for the ZNE Convenzione).
Check out the class flyer here! The earrings in photo are one example - I will be demonstrating how to make several styles, and you can choose your favorite to make.
Beading With Charms
Posted by Leah on Sep 23, 2008
Beading with Charms: Beautiful Jewelry, Simple Techniques (A Lark Jewelry Book)
For an intermediate to advanced wireworker, this book would be useful primarily as a source of inspiration. Don’t expect to learn any advanced techniques, but maybe one of the designers uses materials in a new way that could spark your creativity.
The best thing about this book, in my opinion, is that there are a *lot* of projects - more than most jewelry books - so there’s bound to be something that appeals to most jewelry designers. The weakness is that the projects are mostly beginner-level projects.
Can you use a propane torch to fuse silver?
Posted by Leah on Sep 22, 2008
The answer to this question is definitely yes - you can use a propane torch to fuse silver. In fact, the only torch I use is a propane torch I bought at the hardware store, and it works great for fusing and soldering silver. I’ve used it with sterling, argentium, and fine silver. I’ve also used it to anneal copper & solder copper using silver solder.
Product Review: The Coiling Gizmo
Posted by Leah on Sep 10, 2008
The Coiling Gizmo
It’s really easy to use - you wrap some wire around the “eye” at one end of the winder, and push it into the base, then start turning the winder by its handle, and beautiful perfect coils of wire appear.
I was impressed by how well it worked when I tried it - I’ve done lots of coiling by hand, which takes forever (but in certain designs it is the only way to accomplish it) and I’ve tried other methods designed to be faster that didn’t really work for me.
For example: I tried using en electric drill with a mandrel, but I couldn’t get my drill to spin slowly enough. Wire went flying everywhere. Don’t try it at home, unless you are able to control your drill with a pressure foot & thus can have it spin super slowly. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then your drill is probably too fast.
I tried using a hand-crank drill, but I found I needed a third hand, so that didn’t work either. Maybe a hand-crank drill with a shape more conducive to being clamped to my workbench would have worked…
So I’m not saying this is the best or only way to coil wire, but - this tool made perfect coils, was easy for me to use, and coiled the wire quickly. It’s the best coiling method I’ve tried. The only thing I don’t like about it is that it only comes with two sizes of winders, so you are limited to those to sizes of coils.
I used 26g wire in my experiments, but you can use thicker or thinner wire - probably if you go thicker, it will be harder to get perfect coils, and at a certain thickness of wire, it will just get too hard to crank - I’m thinking 14g wire wouldn’t work too well, but 22g or 20g would probably be just fine.
Leftover Beads
Posted by Leah on Sep 8, 2008
I was just reading a recent post on Beading Daily about using up leftover beads, and I had to laugh. Since I usually buy beads wholesale, 90% of what I buy doesn’t get used up on the project or design I originally bought the beads for.
Autumn Leaves bracelet, made from leftover beads
So what do I do with all these leftover beads? Mostly, I organize them and reorganize them when I’m not feeling inspired, and usually I find something I’ve forgotten about that sparks a new idea for a piece of jewelry.
Certain types of beads that I use frequently, such as my better quality freshwater pearls, and a few sizes of semiprecious stones that work well in my designs, are organized in clear plastic divided trays. When I’m done making up a bunch of silver “frames” (that’s what I call my freeform metal pendants before I finish them off with beads), I get out a tray or two of these favorite beads and look for the perfect pearl or stone to complete my design.
Another thing I do is make up a bunch of dangles, without any finished design in mind. I grab a tray of beads, about 20 headpins, and make pairs of dangles, which can be used later on for earrings and other projects. This is one of my favorite things to do while watching Project Runway - it’s a fairly mindless task for me, since I make thousands of dangles, and then when I have a design in mind that requires bead dangles, they are ready to go.
If I’m really feeling uninspired by some extra beads, something that is fun to do is make “bead soup”. I take beads in a certain color scheme - maybe metallics, maybe greens, whatever - and mix them all together, then string them into necklaces and bracelets. Some of my favorite strung pieces have been made this way, and it’s a great way to use up beads that might not be appropriate for my metal designs.
Jewelry 101 - Easy Wire Earrings
Posted by Leah on Sep 7, 2008
Using some basic wire techniques that I’ve already written about - how to make simple loops, wrapped loops, head pins, and earwires - you can make your very own earring designs using just wire and a couple of beads.
- First, you need two earwires. You can buy them, or make your own.
- Then, you need two head pins with one or more beads on each. You can make your own head pins, or buy them.
- Make a simple loop or wrapped loop as close as you can to where the beads are on each head pin.
- Using flat nosed pliers, open the loop on your earwire, and slip the dangle you just made onto the loop. Use the pliers to close the loop. Make sure you’ve closed it tightly enough that the dangle can’t accidentally slip off.
That’s it! Now you have your very own handmade earrings.
Jewelry 101 - Making Earwires
Posted by Leah on Sep 4, 2008
Making earwires is fairly simple. All you need is some 20 or 21 gauge wire (I usually use sterling silver or argentium silver, but you could use any kind of metal that doesn’t make your ears itch - in the example photos, I’m using 20g copper), a small round object to use as a mandrel, round nose pliers, flat nose pliers, a rubber mallet, and files or sandpaper to smooth out the ends of the wire.
Cut two pieces of wire the same length (1 1/2-2 inches will work)
Smooth both ends of the wire using a file
Make a loop at one end of the wire using round nose pliers
Wrap the wire around a pen or chapstick, or anything about that size that is round
Curve the end of the wire (optional)
You can choose whether you want to curve the end of the wire or not, depending on the look you want. If there is excess wire, trim it off & again smooth out the end using a file or sandpaper.
If necessary, use flat nose pliers to straighten out the loop
To harden the earwire so that it will stand up to wear, place it on a hard flat surface and whack it a few times with a rubber mallet, or other no-metal hammer. (not shown)
Finished earwires, one with a curved end and one without
If necessary, polish the earwires using any method you like (polishing cloth, tumbler, etc.)
Mixed Media Jewelry - Techniques to Try
Posted by Leah on Sep 2, 2008
One of my favorite things about being a jewelry artist is that it allows me to try so many different crafts, and incorporate aspects of all of them into my designs. There are no requirements in making art jewelry - some art jewelry isn’t even really wearable - so it’s a perfect art form for people who like to dabble in different crafts. Here’s an (incomplete) list of techniques and materials that can be used in jewelry making:
- wirework
- bead stringing
- bead weaving, on a loom or using off-loom needle and thread stitches
- basketweaving techniques, using fiber or metal
- embedding objects in resin
- knitting, using fiber or metal
- crocheting, using fiber or metal
- sewing - can be used to connect metal, paper, fabric, etc. stitching can be done with thread, yarn, wire, cord…
- collage
- cold connections in metal
- scrapbook techniques and materials, such as eyelets, brads, etc.
- writing (poetry, quotes, etc) - words can be stamped into metal, engraved on metal, or incorporated in a mixed media piece on fabric, ribbon, paper, etc.
- ink stamping, embossing, glitter, gold leaf…
- felting - needle felting, fulling knit or crochet, wet felting, or any combination
- deconstructing vintage jewelry, watches, and other items with small parts, and using the parts as beads or findings
- stained glass
- metalsmithing techniques (okay, that might be obvious - we are talking about jewelry after all)
- making dolls and miniatures
- polymer clay
- ceramics
- soldering electronic parts
- using LEDs and other working electronic parts for a piece that literally lights up
- use preserved flowers as decorative elements
- fake flowers can be made using many of these techniques and then used as design elements
- drawing and painting
- sculpture
- woodworking
- PMC, aka metal clay - thanks Silver Canyons for the suggestion!
Help me add to this list - leave a comment with a craft technique that’s not on the list & I will add it.
I’m working on project ideas and tutorials using non-traditional jewelry making techniques - if there is a specific technique you’d like to learn more about, let me know and I’ll see what I can find out. I’ve been having so much fun searching for information on mica this past week, and I’d love for my blog to become a resource for people who want to learn about combining different mediums in art and craft projects.
Making Silver Circles
Posted by Leah on Aug 24, 2008
A lot of the jewelry designs I have in mind include silver circles - so I made a whole bunch in various sizes. The process I used is very similar to how band rings are made from wire. I start by cutting wire to the length I need, and filing the ends til they are smooth. Then I form the wire into a kind of oval with the ends touching each other.
Silver Rings - Before Fusing
If I was using regular sterling silver, my next step would be to solder the rings - but I prefer fusing to soldering, so I used Argentium sterling silver. I line the rings up on my firebrick and fuse them closed with a propane torch. I like this method because it is less toxic than soldering - no flux, no pickle, only the propane gas and the metal itself. Also, there is less clean-up involved. My rings look pretty good right after fusing, and just need to be reshaped into circles.
Rings - After Fusing
I reshape them using a ring mandrel and a mallet, one at a time, then polish them a bit, and they are ready to be used in my jewelry designs (or worn as rings - many of them are big enough to fit an average woman’s ring finger, though normally I’d use thicker wire for a finger ring). Some will be textured, others left smooth, and they’ll become parts of earrings and necklaces.
