Etsy Labs

Last night I went to my second Etsy lab craft night! Etsy headquarters are in Dumbo, Brooklyn, under the Brooklyn Bridge.

I have to say that the first time I walked into the space that is Etsy I was nervous! After spending hours and hours in front of my computer in Etsyland It feels like some kind of a friend. So being there in person was actually really weird! Interweb Etsy is real. Dumbo Etsy is am impostor!

I did see some homemade looking soap at the sink...

For me craft night is reverting back to art class in kindergarten. Last night we made exquisite corpse cards with Esther K. Smith. Esther demonstrated how to make our own Halloween cards with magazine cut-outs, including some magazine paper used to clean her press so the paper had a pretty metallic ink wash over it. Made for great craft supplies. Esther was a very good teacher. I pretty much used the colored pencils. Like I said, I was back in kindergarten! I made some new friends, and will be back!

Esther's website for Purgatory Pie Press, a bookmaking and printmaking company.

Cleaning Silver

I've heard about an easy cleaning method for silver tarnish. Memories of a lazy Sunday afternoon a few years ago. Me watching an infomercial about a book of home remedies. The frantic salesman on TV demonstrating entries in the book. Little sneak peaks. This one really caught my eye. It seemed so cool, cleaning silver in an aluminum pan.

Well, I finally tried it out today and its awesome! Easy and cheap. Most likely you will have everything that you need on hand!

Baking Soda, Salt, Aluminum pan or foil, hot water. And my dog Gunny's helping!

Get a disposable Aluminum pan like I have here or line one of your pans with aluminum foil.

1Tbs Baking Soda and 1Tbs Salt into the pan. Heaping Tbs's are fine!

Boil some hot water and pour a little bit into the pan.

Stir for a second and dissolve most of the mix.

Dunk your tarnished silver in!

Watch it clean magically.

I don't recommend trying this on jewelry with gemstones. Some stones might be fine, but i would do some research first. Also, don't clean your oxidized jewelry this way. It will take the oxidation off too.

Its so cool! Here are my tarnished silver necklaces. Tarnish city! Especially the feather necklace. Its so dirty! I cant see how dunking that into anything will clean it.

Let the silver soak. Depending on how dirty it is, a few seconds might be good enough. Or a few minutes. I scrubbed the feather some with the undissolved solution in the aluminum... it was so dirty.

And here they are a few minutes later!!!

Amazing!

Gold Gold Gold!

rosemary and half maple

I love the way it feels, looks, solders, hardens, bends, cuts, tastes smells!

Thanks to some recent sales, I recently made two gold necklaces. One rosemary and one half maple. I can't say that I was exposed to very much gold growing up. And I've always assumed that it was "gaudy" and "some gross yellow color". Perhaps a jealous reaction to my deprived jewelry box! Or, perhaps I was just naive.

Since making jewelry, I have slowly broken through the great gold barrier! With humble beginnings of a black onyx heart gold plated ring from my grandmother in grade school. Then onto a snake link necklace found in the middle of the road while bike riding in middle school.Too bad it was butt ugly and I would have only worn it If I had morphed into a wife beater wearing, gelled haired muscle man. I cannot remember much gold in high school... I was more into grunge with flannels and old thrift store strange-pants that would not see a washing machine for over a month (serious).

After college, I merely watched a jeweler friend work with gold. Gradually, my fingers felt a tingle for the precious metal. One day I made the plunge and whalla! The magic of gold came clear!