Heirloom Treasures and Vintage Textiles

My most recent project, is this old piece of a beautiful doily, that I encased in 3x2 inch glass, soldered with lead-free solder, added a vintage heart charm, and sweet chain for hanging from a peg, knob, armoire, and more.  A great way to use your most treasured old tattered pieces from your Grandmother, Mother, or your own private vintage collection.  The overall length including chain, and heart charm is 7.5 inches long.  Why give a card this Valentine's Day, when you can give an heirloom.   I have listed this piece in my Etsy Store http://www.pumpkinmoonstudio.etsy.com/.

Vintage Feedsack Soldered Charm Bracelet

Good Afternoon!  It's Thursday, and I managed to squeeze in some time finishing up this soldered bracelet, consisting of charms that were created using vintage feedsack Aunt Grace reproduction quilting fabric.  A couple of days ago, I posted the beginning of this project.  My glass charms were copper taped and ready to solder and add my links.  Today, I managed to get all of them soldered.  Each time I solder a new piece, I begin to understand a little bit better,  how the solder flows, and my charms are beginning to be much more smooth than when I first started learning how to make them.

I kept my first attempt at making these charms, and I can tell you looking back at it, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.  It took purchasing 3 different soldering irons before I found the right one that works for me, and with the help of several books, a great website I feel much more comfortable with my creations, and offering them for sale.  This particular bracelet has been listed in my Etsy Store.

http://www.pumpkinmoonstudio.etsy.com/

A helpful site for anyone wanting to get into making these is

http://www.simplyswank.net/

You can do a Google search also for soldered glass charms.  It is very inspirational to see other artists' works, and the amazing collages in such tiny detail. 

On a more personal note, my husband got back from Kentucky early, due to the bad weather. It has been so cold, frozen water pipe to our washing machine.  I'm already wishing for Spring to hurry and arrive.

 

All That Glitters

I thought I would get these other soldered Valentine's Day projects photographed and posted yesterday, but that didn't happen.  So, here are the other 2 projects I finished.  The main portion of the piece is 3x2 inches in size, slightly larger than a standard size business card.  Of course, the glitter flowed freely on this one.  The handbeaded dangles consist of genuine freshwater pearls, trumpet flower beads, vintage swarovski crystals from the 1950's, and red aurora borealis faceted czech glass beads. 

On the other one, the little child's chair knobs have been accented in red.  This was such a sweet vintage postcard image, I just couldn't resist using it for this piece.  The large red faceted glass crystal bead is also vintage from the 1940's or 1950's.  I'm pleased with both.  The sparkle so much better in person.  One thing I have to work on this year, is learning how to photograph my work more professionally.

I had a friend ask me to photograph the process, step by step.  I'll try and do that in one of my upcoming posts here on my Blog.  Well, back to work.  I have Ebay orders to fill, new designs to list, and some collectibles to put up for auction on Ebay as well.