Friday is My Fun Day- Butterfly Pendant

It's been a crazy day 'round here... Lots of wacky kid stuff. The power was out for about 2 hours. Deborah had a choir concert at school. Abigail had Occupational Therapy... I've had a migraine headache almost all day.
Weird, wacky day.

But. I am going to prevail! I will post about what I'm doing in the creative realm =)

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so far, I think this is my favorite piece from Metalsmithing. This will be a pendant. And no, I don't really know what it will be strung from yet.

I'd rather do more than a chain, but I'm not sure what that 'more' will be.


The first thing I did was anneal the metal to make it soft and usable. Next, I used the roller press to stamp the leaves into the metal.

Then I cut out the rectangular shape and filed it, and cut out the flowers and butterfly.
I soldered the flowers and butterfly onto the pendant.

The next to the last step was to use a toothpick to 'paint' liver of sulfur onto the leaf impression. It just wasn't standing out enough on the pendant, but I didn't want the whole thing to be patinaed. Just the leaves. So, I carefully put the liver of sulfur just where I wanted it.

My last step has been to carefully sand the metal. And that has been the most difficult part of the process. I've been very unhappy with my ability to evenly sand the entire piece down.

I can't get quite close enough to the flowers and butterfly.... Which has left odd glowy halos about them. I think I'm going to have to let it go, though, 'cuz if I keep sanding at it I'll lose my patina and possibly even the impressions of the leaves.

Otherwise, I'm really happy with this piece. I wish I could sand a bit better, but I like the 'brushed' metal look the piece currently has.