Handcrafted Serenity Jewelry Designs: Brass

My 9th grade teacher would be so proud of my alliterative title! I can't remember her name, but I can see her in my head - a short, round woman with dark hair who couldn't believe how ignorant we were about grammar. Anyway...

I had some brass bezels on hand, and I purchased some Mod Podge Dimensional Magic at the new Joann Fabrics store that recently opened in Columbia, MO. I wanted something for quick narrow bezel fills and I had read about this product - I used a 50% off coupon so I could give it a try.

This was about 2 weeks ago, so I decided on a St. Patrick's day theme. I cut an oval out of shamrock paper glued it down and filled it up with Dimensional Magic, waited overnight. The next morning, it was a MESS. The ink bled through! Ugh! I didn't take a photo of that because the idea to blog about didn't come to me until after I took it apart.

When I stripped everything apart, it wasn't the ink on the paper that had bled, it was the brass on the bezel that had turned green. The pink arrows point out the greenest part but it still may be hard to see. But it was obvious in person.

Ugh! Green!

I scrubbed and sanded it clean, then coated the bezel with clear fingernail polish. Not sure if you can see the coat of clear polish either, but here is what the cleaned-up bezel looks like.

After a coat of clear nail polish

The nail polish was just what I needed. The next pour worked perfectly! I topped the shamrock paper with a 3D glitter shamrock sticker, and coated it again with Dimensional Magic. I made 2 this time, and the results turned out just like I wanted!

Finished bezel pendants

This product won't totally replace using two-part epoxy resin, for one thing it is not self-leveling. But for quick little pendants like this, it works well. I hope this little coating tip helps you when you are working with raw metal bezels.

Today's post is about Tracy Statler's Wellness Words Jewelry Challenge from her blog Make Bracelets! I love all of Tracy's blog posts and it's one of the few that I follow - I usually learn something from each one of them and I look forward to getting and email that there is a new one to read.

Tracy's challenge was to come up with an inspirational word or phrase in an area of your life where you want to make positive change. My word: Persist. I have been working on finishing things that I start!

I knew I wanted to stamp my word on a strip of brass, which I had on hand. Another word I could have used - "Practice," because good, clear, even stamping isn't one of my strengths. You can probably tell by the position of the I.

Friday night was a prime example of persistence. I waited until the last minute finish this necklace (maybe my phrase should have been "Stop Procrastinating") and I thought about just saying to heck with the deadline. I mean, I had the phrase piece done. But I stuck with it for once!

However, it was too late to get a good photo. There is always a hitch, isn't there? So you are getting the best photo I could take tonight. I promise to get a better photo of the whole necklace, because it looks pretty good and there's lots more goodies to see than just this section.

EDITED: I'm back with more photos of the rest of the necklace. Originally, I was going to have the "Persist" Brass segment hang from the art bead and then the dangles hang from that, but it turned out way too long and in the end, I like it as part of the necklace anyway. The brass flowers were a plain connector that I colored with Vintaj Patinas and Tim Holtz Adirondack Alcohol Inks.The remainder of the necklace is finished with a combination of Picasso finish beads and Tiger Eye tube beads on the left, and Brown Glass bead, a polka-dot Lampwork Art bead, and Blue Peruvian Opal stick beads on the right. The back end of the necklace ends with a brass chain and a toggle (OK fine! It *will* end with a chain and toggle, I promise!)