My friend Lisa does a lot to support Wellspring, which is a local organization providing educational opportunities, summer camp, food, etc to people living downtown and in what we call the West Central Neighborhood, which is pretty much downtown. I lived in the west central neighborhood until I was 11 or 12 and love seeing the revitalization currently taking place.
Anyway, she asked me to make something for their upcoming gala. So I put this chainmaille bracelet together.
Before it got to this final point, I texted Lisa with this photo to ask if it was acceptable:
She was thrilled with it. But I decided I wanted it to be less shiny. So I did this to it:
This is after a liver of sulphur bath and a tiny bit of scrubbing with a 0000 piece of steel wool.
After a bit more scrubbing, this is what it looks like compared to a piece of the same chainmaille weave without patina
Patina (which is basically the process of rapidly tarnishing metal) really is personal preference. I like it, but not all the time. I usually don’t love super shiny copper. However, sometimes I do. It really depends on the person making the piece or the person buying the piece.
Once I had steel wooled the bracelet to my satisfaction, I put it in the tumbler for a couple hours. I use one I got from Harbor Freight, but am thinking it’s time to upgrade very soon as this thing doesn’t have enough horse power for how much I use it
And here’s the final result:
One more thing…I was perusing a craft show pinterest board that Joanne Tinley curated and found this ideas for showing biz cards. I think it’s brilliant!
While at Target this morning, I found Slinky Jr’s in the dollar section:
This is my favorite biz card solution so far!
I love the bracelet with patina – like you, I don’t love shiny, shiny copper. This turned out really beautiful.
And that business card idea is fantastic! Wish I’d seen that before last week! LOL!
Jen, I love the final version of the bracelet! Thanks for sharing Jo Tinley’s slinky card holder… what an elegant way for a lowly slinky to end its days (and if one’s style were more playful there are still coloured ones out there LOL),
Jen – LOVE the bracelet! And what a clever idea for business cards! p.s. your business cards are scrumptious!
LOve the business card holder idea! Can you still get metal slinkys… most of them seem to be plastic these years!
Apparently since I just bought this today at Target from the dollar section.
Beautiful bracelet!
I love the bracelet, and thanks for sharing the card holder idea you found.
A lovely bracelet for a great cause.i love it with the patina the most.the business card idea is so clever!
Jenni
The bracelet is great. And the biz card display is Cool. I still have my original slinky from when I was a kid. Every time I think about getting rid of it, I just can’t. May use it for this. Thanks.
Your bracelet is beautiful! I have just started using LOS and I have many questions. My biggest, but probably stupid, question is this…can you put items into LOS that have glass beads on them, or do you need to patina BEFORE you add the beads? I ask because sometimes I don’t know if I want to patina until I see how my design develops. Any tips you have would be wunderful! Thanks bunches!
P.S. LOVE LOVE LOVE the business card holder!
Thanks Angela! Yes, it’s ok to put glass beads into LOS. I would watch out for maybe softer gems like pearls and…I don’t know what else is soft. You can tumble lots of stuff, but if you tumble AB crystals, the coating will come off. Again, probably a bad idea to tumble soft stones. Glass is perfectly ok in the tumbler though
I wonder if you had the same problem with the business card holder as I did. People kept picking it up and all the cards went all over the floor. Seemed like a good idea when I first saw it but I wont be using it again. LOL