Elephant Glass Pendant

 

Hi Everyone, 

     Michelle here to show you a fun way you can use The Robins Nest with jewelry making!

This is going to be a basic intro tutorial for "real" and "faux" soldering!

(Faux solder pieces can be used in cards and scrapbook pages)

 Materials and tools needed: 

Blue Glitter Elephant - on Sale 20% off!

Ocean and Silver Bells Dew Drops

Precision scissors

Foam tape and clear drying glue

2 Memory slides

Bone folder

For the "faux" solder-  silver tapeor copper taoe

For the "real" solder - Solder iron, stand, regulator, copper tape, lead free solder, tip cleaner, clamps, flux, tarnish paste and cloth, heat proof surface and non stick craft mat. 

Cut a piece of your paper to fit clean glass slide.  Sign the back of the paper if this is going to be a gift. Glue piece down onto slide. Glue your dew drops as shown.

 Trim out another elephant and attach with the foam tape to add dimension.Add the rest of the dew drops.  Place the 2nd clean slide on top.  Cut the copper tape and place around the slides as shown above.
Sandwich the two slides between your fingers, (fingers prints on the outside of the slides are OK) Carefully add your copper tape to just the top side of the slide and fold over the remaining onto the back slide, trimming any tape over laps as you work. Burnish or smooth  the tape with your bone folder, eliminating sharp corners and wrinkles.

 Do this all around and then cut 4 more pieces from the tape and this time, start at the bottom and overlap onto the front. Burnish again.
Your piece is now ready to embellish a page or card!  Just clean off the fingerprints with a bit of windex. If you did silver tape for the faux solder, you can just color it with gold or copper leafing pens.
I'm sorry I don't have a step by step for soldering, I'm still getting the hang of it my self. But if you have done it your self, the next few steps are for you.
Clean your hot iron in the tip cleaner regularly while working.. I use one by Aoyue. (Found it on Amazon) No wet sponge fuss.

 I use a paste/gel flux because its easier to see on the copper tape while working.
A few tips when soldering: don't solder on a empty stomach, have as few distractions around you as possible, don't be tired, keep the solder tip cleaned.

Here is how I keep my supplies and tools organized. Everything fits in here except for the large tile I use to solder on. When I go walking on the beaches, I try to find interesting shells or sea glass, then I put them in here for future projects.  You can see in one of the drawers, some are already wrapped in copper tape, waiting to be soldered. I use the large leaf shaped glass pieces for bottle toppers.
What you can barely see but is important is a paint sanding respirator for when I need it.

 

Thanks for coming by! I'm in the process of experimenting with video making. Hopefully I'll have one for you soon, in the meantime...come see me every 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Friday here for creative Inspiration!
~Michelle Frae Cummings