From the Ruins of an Opulent Jungle Kingdom

This bracelet makes me think of ancient and grand civilizations, their splendor long passed away, secreted beneath a millenium's worth of lush vines and foliage in the heart of an impenetrable Mayan jungle. Only this small relic survived, a faint echo of their culture's high art.



(Angling for a job writing for Sundance catalog so I'm working on my pretentiousness. How'd I do? Should I add something about fierce jungle goddesses or something? "Unleash your fierce inner jungle leopard goddess with this opulent and rough-hewn wristpiece." Or maybe "I was captivated by the rough, atavistic opulence of this breathtaking piece; under its spell I began a voyage into my past lives and discovered I had once been--yes--the fierce and revered empress of a vast and lavish Mayan kingdom." Still seems a little wishy washy to me. How about "This stunning and opulent royal wristpiece, refulgent with luminous copper pearls and burnished copper, was wrought in the blazing forge of GOD HIMSELF who personally delivered it to me and commanded that I list it on Etsy." Did I nail it? I'm SO into the word opulent today. And atavistic. I love that word. Hard to find opportunities to use it in daily life. Although I have found it on occasion to be a less offensive alternative to the terms "goddamn Neanderthal" and "effing caveman." Mostly because nobody knows what it means. I'm not even entirely sure I know what it means.)



Copper green opal with hammered bead caps, freshwater pearls, moss agate, hand-forged toggle clasp, and fabulous "borneo" rollo chain from Ornamentea. A necklace in the same design is forthcoming soon. As soon as God finishes it.

My First Bead Caps

Well I finally did it. I stumbled my way, cussing, through the illegible one-page "instruction manual" for my metal punch from Harbor Freight (which did not, in fact, have "screws", but rather metric allen nuts, for which no allen wrench was provided (rather, a big dopey "key" was enclosed); my set of course was not metric so I had to go the hardware store), and stunned myself by actually figuring out how to use it. Punched out some little discs from copper and brass 22 gauge sheet, hammered them a little, put holes in the middle with my pin vise drill, domed them to fit a 12mm bead, hammered them a little more, and oxidized them. Here they are, after a little polishing. Pretty much the way I'd hoped they would turn out.



It was a stupid amount of work. It's the drilling the little hole that's a pain. Think I'll make a little dimple first with an awl next time, maybe it'll go faster.

I have some 20 gauge sheet that I think would make some nice, really burly bead caps, but I don't think I could punch through it. I almost couldn't get through the brass sheet; might have to have the BF do that. It's rated for up to 18 gauge, but man! I would need an elephant to come step on it for me. I need a hydraulic metal punch. If anybody has any tricks for punching tough metal, I'd love to hear them. Maybe I'm not doing it right.

I would love to do this in silver too. I'm contemplating getting some silver sheet too, but I'm afraid it would be even harder than the brass. Anybody have any experience with sterling sheet and metal punches? The 22 gauge seems like a good thickness for bead caps. Probably too thin for charms or tags though.

OK, going to clean up my mess and drink a beer with the BF. I think I'm going to use the two copper pair for some green opal and maybe some aqua terra jasper earrings. I'm going to put the brass ones on a pair of faceted red agate earrings.

Pimped More Earrings

Check these out. Riffed off the silver ones I did, these are with lilac bronze pearls and pale amethyst rounds. Started kind of from scratch with the color, never made mauve earrings before. I'm going to do a bunch of earrings with the same design, but different metals and colors. Next up: copper.

Triple Whammy Hammered Copper Pendant

"You are getting verrrrry sleepy. And you are feeling verrrry generous. Look at the pretty spirals, around and around and around. One, two, and three. Keep focusing on pretty spiral number three. Yeah, down there. That's right. You are feeling verrrry generous and verrrry compliant. Look at the pretty boobies--I mean spirals and buy me that leather coat. You want to buy me that coat..."

Just a suggested usage, since he'll probably be looking at your boobs anyway. He won't even see what hit him.

Spiraling out of Control

OK, this is my third and last spiral pendant. For now. Had to practice after I watched Sharilyn Miller's "Ethnic Style" DVD (did you know you can hammer the crap out of worthless foreign coins and make your own dangly things?)--made a pile of spirals in copper (trying to make two identical ones for earrings, took me about six tries) and one in silver (how nice, it only took about SIX FEET of 16 gauge wire.) Finally got to use my itty bitty slate pearls, and had an excuse to buy the 4-foot strand of silver pearls at the bead store. You're probably going to be seeing a lot things with silver pearls now on this blog. For a couple of years. ("Oh look, a silver pearl trivet. And a keychain. And a belt buckle. Is that a tiara?") There are two more little sterling silver spirals joining the strung portion of the necklace to the hand-forged sterling silver chain. I got lucky with those--I'm shocked I got them the same size.

I attempted a square spiral and a trapezoidal spiral (I was going for a teardrop and couldn't execute) in brass. Mmm. Not so much. Maybe I will make them into key chains for the recycling guy and his girlfriend. I did these funky impressions of a split leaf philodendron in brass too, and oxidized them to dark brown. I might have to do the obvious and use them on a strand of chocolate brown pearls. With smoky quartz. (I'm in the grips of Monochrome right now. Time to head back to the Color Palette Generator. Hard not to pop a Sahara Desert photo in there. "Oh, look at all those lovely shades of Sand Beige!!!" Or Sahara Desert at Night. "Oh, look! Black.").

I will make earrings based on this same design, if I can produce two more little spirals that are the same size. Wish me luck.