Friday, October 7, 2011

Repurposing

I've been using random bits of copper tubing and wire I've found lying around the house for a while to make headpins and more recently flattening out tubing to make ring parts, such as this new-not quite finished ring...

 with copper bezel and base on a silver ring. I really like the contrast between copper and silver but here where I've soldered copper together the solder still looks silver, (I expected to be able to get copper coloured solder but now know there's no such thing!) so I need to blacken the whole thing in good ol Liver of Sulfur. I also have plans to experiment with some solutions to try and acheive the pretty blue/green copper patina.
And I have also been given this wonderful item...

an old copper toilet cistern!!
It's almost too cool to cut up, but I won't have to for a while yet, and even those internal bits will provide lots of material for toilet-rings:)

NZ bead exchange

I've sent off these 10 beads to the annual exchange and now wait to see what treasures I will recieve in return:)