Experimental Rock

     Oh, the wide world of geology-related puns. It shall never cease to amuse me. 

     The reason I made that joke at the risk of infuriating pun-haters everywhere is because this whole shebang I'm about to tell you about was pretty much just an experiment. You see, I didn't have anything else to do, and I had recently found a rock that I'd been holding on to since last fall (I'd shoved it in the pocket of a jacket and forgotten about it). So I figured I'd just kind of play around with it and see where I ended up. Here's the rock in question, and what I did with it. 

     If I recall correctly I picked this up while walking the dogs at the park. It caught my eye because it had a nice glint in the sun and was already pretty flat on two sides. To start out, I took the Dremel to it to smooth and flatten all the edges, then shine it up a bit. Just for fun, here's a shot of one of the sides where I've done one half and not the other. It's satisfying in the same way as powerwashing something really dirty.

     When I got done smoothing everything out, I was left with this.

     I put that in gif form for you because I had a feeling in photos this was going to look like...well, a beige rock. I wanted you to get a sense of the pretty natural sheen and depth. I dunno, maybe I'm just really into rocks. If nothing else, it shows off what I did here, which was just to smooth everything out and bring out the natural shape of the rock, because that's my personal preference (remember how I like my things to look like they were crafted by an ancient artisan and only recently excavated?).

     Anyway, next I decided I wanted to add some glitz. First I tried taping off the two large flat surfaces and spray painting the sides with my favorite gold spray paint (the Krylon kind). 

     It was alright, and I didn't hate it. But then Amanda suggested I gold leaf the sides (she had some that she'd received in a monthly nail art box -- of course -- that she wasn't ever going to use). Go big or go home, right? That's what I loved about this experiment: if it succeeds, awesome, I get to look like the coolest witch in the coven with some weirdo homemade rock jewelry; if not, hey, it's a rock. Throw it back outside.

     Here's what's cooking once the gold leaf was applied.

      Much better! To actually turn this into a piece of jewelry, I just spun some little loopies into some gold wire and wrapped it around. I wanted to hold it in place permanently with a dab of epoxy, because I like to be sure of these things, but then I decided I liked how glossy the epoxy made everything, so I dunked the whole damn thing in there. Just went for it. Then proceeded to glue my hands to EEEEVERYTHING. It sucked. But this turned out to be a pretty pendant!

     So this guy will not be getting chucked back outside! I love a happy ending. 


     And the happy ending to this post is a nice before and after shot to remind you how far we've come (and for convenient Pinteresting purposes. Yeah, hi all you readers coming from Pinterest! Welcome, come in, sit down, have a lemonade, don't let the dog drool on you).

Accessory overload, Part II

     I'm back with more thrown-together jewelry! This has been a super fun mini-project for me, since it justifies my hoarding of small shiny objects AND results in me having more accessory options. Double win!

Piece #1: Chain Reaction ring
     (In that it is chain, and my reaction is "Ooh, pretty!")
     Cobbled together from: A broken piece of an old necklace that I've had for years. I think I have a matching bracelet somewhere too, so this works out well. 

     All I had to do for this one was take out some jump rings on either side of the clear piece that made it sit a little funny on my finger, then connect the chain on either side to make it a continuous ring. Here's what I started out with, in case you're curious:

Piece #2: Ring around the Knuckle... Ring
      (Puns are gettin' a little labored here, I'll admit.)
     Cobbled together from: Wire. Just wire. Sometimes laziness works well enough. 

     When you've been making as many rings as I have lately, you have to expand your ring real estate onto other knuckles. This is simple, but matches a lot of my other rings for convenient layering purposes. 


Piece #3: Fight for your Pyrite to Party ring
     Cobbled together from: a chunk of pyrite, a ring base. 

 

     This was the one I had to go to the craft store for. I had ring bases sitting around, but this little piece of pyrite is seriously so pretty, it just deserved something a little nicer (something that won't turn my skin green, maybe? I know, reach for the stars!). So I picked up a sterling silver base for it and slapped it on with some epoxy, in my usual method. I wore it today with the two small heart stacking rings you see there in the picture. I think those were supposed to be a "give one to a friend, keep one for yourself" type deal, but pshh I'm a great friend to myself, so I kept both. 

     So that's what I've been decorating myself with lately! It's been good to use some of the things I've been holding onto for a while and turn them into wearable pieces. 

Needs more jewels. Always.

     I've been on the majorest of jewelry kicks lately. I don't know why, I just want to put on all the sparkly things until I look like I'm starting a new life as a fortune-teller. So last night I threw together a few things from mine and my mom's stashes of various shiny bits and bobs, and ended up with three new things to catch the eye of every bird that flies by. 

Piece #1: Hand of Glory necklace
     Cobbled together from: weird hand-shaped charm that I have a bunch of laying around, long silver chain, crystal from a thing that was on a flower arrangement once (specific, right?), jump rings.

I've really been liking putting stuff on this dress form for pictures lately; she can stand still a lot longer than me, which makes pictures easier.

     This was the easiest to put together of the three. It was just a matter of connecting all the pieces with jump rings. It's actually on a really long chain, so it layers nicely with other necklaces, like my glow-in-the-dark pendant, for those days when one necklace is not enough (every day). As a side note, I was just making a Harry Potter reference calling this the Hand of Glory necklace, but totally go read the wikipedia page for that phrase, it's way interesting.


Piece #2: Beaches be Crazy ring
     Cobbled together from: a piece of beach glass that happened to have a nice finger-sized curve to it, gold wire, epoxy. 

The band-aid should only be attempted as an accessory by super stylish people like me, it's tough to pull off (HA PUNZ OMG). Just kidding, I'm an idiot who can't do anything without injuring herself. The day before yesterday I had band-aids on 3 of 5 fingers on this hand. FASHION.

 
   This one took a little more effort to bring into existence than the necklace, but it was still crazy easy. I just took some thickish (words, they're my specialty) wire and made a circle the size of my finger -- I generally just use a chapstick for this, because using the proper tools is for squares. Then I sat the piece of beach glass next to the wire and marked with a Sharpie where I wanted the wire to end. I didn't want it to go all the way underneath the glass because it would show through, so I just left enough wire to glue the glass onto at the edges. Like this:

 

     I didn't worry about the ends of the wire being sharp because I knew I was going to use epoxy to hold the beach glass on forever and ever, which would smoothly cover any pointy parts. Really the only hard part of this was finding a way to get the pieces to sit together right while I waited for the epoxy to set. 

Piece #3: Stone Cold Rocks ring

     Cobbled together from: a pretty rock, ring base, epoxy.

 

     This one couldn't be more straightforward: take pretty rock, take ring base, glue part A to part B with epoxy. Ta-daaaa! I really enjoy this one because it matches the tiny blue-green stacking ring on my middle finger really well. In fact, I like this whole combination a lot. Rings are where I've really been going crazy lately. I just love going full Ringo with stacking rings, big chunky rings, first knuckle rings -- whatever I can get my hands on. Or get on my hands. Good god, I have no pun-restraint today. This post has become a game of "count the puns," or, depending on your feelings about pun-based humor, "count the audible groans."

     So there's my first batch of use-what-you've-got jewelry! I've actually got a second batch of jewelry concoctions using things I've already got in the works, but I have to make a trip to the craft store for that one. You can't always have everything you need on hand, that would be too easy.

"Rock" on. Wah-waaaaah.

     I couldn't NOT open this post with the world's worst pun. It had to happen. Destiny commanded it. Anyway, I've been experimenting with a new hobby. Whilst strolling through the park the other day (picture me wearing my best top hat and monocle for this, not because it's accurate, but because it's an image I'd like people to associate with me), I picked up a couple rocks that caught my eye when they sparkled a bit in the sun. I thought they had potential, and you can never be sure that the economy won't totally collapse, leaving us with useless bits of paper instead of money and hey, maybe if I have some shiny rocks I could trade them for food. It's good to be prepared! Or I could just turn them into pretty baubles to wear around. Come what may, ya dig? So I took them home. One little shard of quartz seemed to have particularly great bauble-potential. But after I washed it up, it still needed work. Here's how it started out: 

 

     You can tell it's pretty small based on how massive my Hulk hands look in that picture. Because of this, I think it's destined to become a ring, though I'll tell you right now that I haven't decided exactly how I want to do that (Wire-wrap it? Drill a hole through the side? Super-glue it to my finger and see how long it stays on? Time will tell!), so don't expect the last picture in this post to be a glistening ring on my finger. 

     The process I used to fix up the little guy was pretty simple. I experimented on a less-ideal rock first to see what worked best, and when I was confident the process worked, I applied it to my wee little quartzy-wartzy. Here's the play-by-play:

1. To shape it, I used a Dremel with a silicone carbide wheel attachment to grind away all the rough edges. This is by far the most satisfying part. Changing the shape of a rock! I felt like Hephaestus crafting Zeus' lightning bolts or Poseidon's trident! Except, you know. Scaled back a bit. (In case you hadn't already picked up on this, it takes NOTHING to get me excited. Rocks? Hell yeah, rocks! They're like my catnip!)
   
   
2. With the same attachment, I then went over each plane of the shard very, very patiently, grinding down all the crags and notches until everything was smooth. This part was still fun, though not quite as satisfying as step one because it takes a lot longer. Add to this that the Dremel I'm using is cordless and a bit old, so I only get a little work done before I have to go recharge it for a few hours, essentially working in very small shifts, and you have MADNESS. It's been a real test of my patience, as well as my willpower, because it's made me BADLY want to go out and buy a corded Dremel so I can just sit down with it and really go to town. But I just splashed out on my boots, so I'm not up for a big spend again for a while. I do have a birthday coming up in...4 months though (which may or may not be why I linked the one I want there...Hi, Mom and Dad!). More patience-testing! I'm gonna be a saint by the end of this!
   
   
3. Once all the nooks and crannies (good in an English muffin, bad in a rock) were gone, I sanded the stone with progressively finer grits of sandpaper until it was nice and smooth.
   
   
4. Then I used polishing compound on a felt wheel attachment to buff it up reeeeal nice (I don't know how to spell that the way I want to say it, which is like a toothless old prospecter. Naaas, maybe? Whatever, it's not important).
   
   
5. Finally, I added a coat of clear lacquer to give it a wet-look shine. Ready for the reveal? Ok, here it is!
   
   

     Wooo, look at those curves! Look at that glisten! I could have made it a perfect rectangle if I really wanted to, but I like the more organic shape. Makes it more unique! Well, as unique as it can be...quartz is the most common mineral in the Earth's continental crust. But I still think it's pretty, and I definitely plan to polish up more of these little delights.

     So there you have it! That's how I took a rough little fragment of quartz, a mere boogie plucked straight from the nostril of Mother Earth, and turned it into a smooth little adornment. Here's a side-by-side comparison of before and after to save you the trouble of scrolling back up for your makeover fix.