Today, I have an unusual story to share. It’s an absolute disaster, in terms of the initial idea ! However, I’m finding lots of positives. Starting at the beginning .... I wanted to make a pair of earrings inspired by my recent Seed Pod Ring. The idea was to develop a simple round base and add three very small, balled pieces of silver wire, shaped to imitate seed heads. I would then, add short posts with a butterfly to wear the earrings.
It sounded like a good plan.
Unfortunately, I didn’t take the number of very small pieces of wire (which needed to be soldered and consequently heated) into account, sufficiently !
The image (bottom left) was a little way into the Make and going well. I’d created the basic component (soldered) and ready for ‘balling the ends’. I should have done this or tried to ‘ball’ the wire first. I’m not sure it would have made a difference ? I think, the main issue is the very small length (1.4cm) of quite ‘fine’ wire. I managed to ‘ball’ a couple of the wire ends (perfectly) and then the whole component started to melt. I decided to abandon the job and melted the whole thing (see bottom right image). I’ve hammered the melted silver and produced a couple of larger, flattened, roundish pieces (top image). I’m calling these component drops.
I’ve learned lots of things about managing this kind of Make and feel very good about the whole project. I’m determined, I will produce a much better and improved design. I like my Seed Pod Ring but if I’m honest, it’s not especially my kind of thing and I’m not sure I would like earrings in the same design. I simply got the idea in my head and it wouldn’t move.
My new plan is to add a couple of larger pieces of thicker silver wire (probably about 1.0 or 1.5mm) to the new silver drops. I have three drops, so will aim to produce a necklace charm and a pair of earrings. Wish me luck.
Thanks for calling in today. Have a great weekend and I’ll be back next week with more Making stories.
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