Soldering: They key is to not touch the hot part!

It has been raining a whole lot lately. Rain and creativity have always gone hand in hand for me. That might have something to do with the fact that I don't much feel like going out on rainy days so I would rather stay in and make something! So I decided that this weekend was the weekend that I would try my hand at soldering jewelry. I fired up the soldering iron, cut up my copper foil tape into strips, clipped a few sticks of solder, and got my flux all ready to go. I had my spot all set up like a pro. Then I very clumsily ran my hand into the smoldering hot tip of the soldering iron! Ouch! Regardless, the show must go on and so it did. It was jolly good fun but here's an important tip for those of you who are thinking about trying this out at home: Don't touch the iron because it sizzles your skin like eggs on the pavement on an August afternoon! Yikes. Another great tip is to head on over to your local Canadian Tire (if you're Canadian eh?) and check out the clamps section in one of the tool isles. They sell this really neato little clamp with a suction cup at the bottom which is perfect for holding your piece as you solder. They'll run you about $2 CAD.

I also went ahead and tried soldering around some etched mirror pendants I was dying to get started. It was a great success! High five!

I even got so bold as to dable with textures such as little droplets of solder on the seahorse, the fish, and the ship pendants. I see much more of this kind of stuff in my future.

Got coin?

After my first little experiment with using pennies in jewelry, I became inundated with ideas that taunted me and would continue to taunt me till the day they would be realized. Pennies here, pennies there, pennies can be found everywhere! They really can! The penny, in Canada, is probably the lesser used of all the coins, yet you can almost always dig one out of your wallet to scratch that lotto ticket or find one lying on the sidewalk possibly dropped by someone fumbling for change in their pockets or purse. These pennies may have been cherished by the child who once collected them in his piggy bank or used in a coin toss to determine who would start the parking lot baseball game. They may have been dropped in a Tim Horton's Send a kid to camp collection box, or used in a drinking game by college friends instead of studying for their big exam. Some of these pennies may have been thrown over a shoulder into a fountain in hopes of a wish coming true and later picked up by the homeless man who washes in that fountain. They may have been used in a silly game of bloody knuckles in the schoolyard at lunch or put in the mouth of a baby who has not yet grasped the concept of germs.. Which gets me to thinking... Thank god I washed these pennies before turning them into jewelry! These goodies and more like them can be found at http://souldier.etsy.com/.