Ok, ok

I'll make a post already. I posted a few things on Facebook tonight. A made some peridot mini earrings and a matching pendant. I'm trying to sell them to some guys at work for their mothers/wives. So far no sales but requests to try some different things, which is ok. I do like experimenting.

I bought some polishing cloths, which are like sandpaper. There are 12 of them and they go from course to fine and you're supposed to go through each one in sequence and by the end you should have a mirror polish on your silver. I bought it for the pieces I tried in my PMC class because I've never been happy with the sheen.

I started with a Japanese 5 yen coin. I wanted a coin with a hole in the middle and I found this in my coin collection from my younger days (yes, i still have it!). After my first PMC project turned out so well (my crescent moons) I think I got a little cocky. I roughly cut out the shape with an exacto knife and didn't bother too much with details, figuring I could file out any inconsistencies later. When they came back, we put them in the tumbler, as opposed to the hand finishing we did with the first piece. They came out dull and messy looking.

I did some scraping and filing and polishing last night. It looks better but there are still some scratches so I guess I will do the whole process again.

The polished one is at the top, the unpolished at the bottom, and the coin I based it on on the left. See how the PMC shrinks? That's normal. I put holes in so I could string an earwire and 3 beads from the bottom. Eventually I will finish these ones.

I also tried the liver of sulfur I bought with Ursula's gift card to try an "antiquing" effect. What do you think?

In this picture it looks more red because my lighting is terrible. It's really just a dark gray.I think you can polish off some of the color and just leave it in the crevises to help the details stand out. The polishing cloths didnt' work so maybe I need actual jewelry cleaner. I'll try that soon. This might have some cool applications. I just don't know what they are yet.

And I ordered some shadow boxes to showcase my jewelry at our work art show. I put scrapbook paper as a backdrop and hung it from embroidery thread. I didn't know how else to do it. ?

Hopefully that doesn't look silly. I have to do the rest this weekend. Hopefully it will get me some visibility. Well, I'm pooped as I'm back to my 10 hour work days. But you know what that means? Fridays are free for jewelry making! Yippee!