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Monday, August 12, 2013

Art Jewelry Boot Camp #4 - Jewelry Clasps

Welcome to the 4th Jewelry Makers' Blog Hop sponsored by Love My Art Jewelry. This month's assignment was to construct our own clasps. For this challenge I decided to make a few standard wire work "S" clasps as well as work with some new textures and shapes I had not tried before using copper sheet.

To start here is a version of the classic wire "S" I made recently and like to use with copper wired bead bracelets. They are fairly easy to make using needle nose pliers and a steel mandrel. The copper wire has been patinated with liver of sulphur and then hand polished.


Here is another variation of the classic "S" clasp hammered flat.


The next piece was an experiment in bending a small rectangular strip of copper sheet to form a hook and hinge and then wrapping it with copper wire to secure the ends.


For the fourth clasp, I tried cutting out shapes from textured copper sheet made for a previous boot camp. It took a hammer, texture materials, jeweler's saw, drill bit; as well as a needle file and sandpaper to smooth all the rough edges after they were cut.


Here is what it looks like closed.



Now all I have to do is make some jewelry to go with these clasps. I have a few ideas... ;)




Click the Love My Art Jewelry Boot Camp button to see more beautiful
handmade clasps:
 
 
Love My Art Jewelry: Art Jewelry Boot Camp
 
 
 
 

18 comments:

  1. such beautiful clasps! love them

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  2. These are fabulous clasps, can't wait to see what you'll create to go with them..;

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  3. These are beautiful, Lisa... the clasp always seems to be the forgotten child when I make a bracelet!

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  4. Nice job! They are all very creative.

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  5. Love the variety of these- lovely work! Christie

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  6. These are gorgeous Lisa -- little works of art. xo

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  7. Beautiful work Lisa! The last 2 are really cool since they are quite unique!

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  8. Beautiful clasps! Can't wait to see what you do with them, Lisa.

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  9. Very unique. My favorite is the one with the sheet metal loop and little wire wrapped bead. Although, I have to say, your "S" clasps are very professional looking with no marks on them, nice patina. Very good work!
    Emily

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  10. I think the wire S is the one I love the most, also the hammered one! They are easy to make and efficient!

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  11. I love all of these - the S clasps look very el egant and I really like the idea of the wire wrapped bead.

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  12. Beautiful!!!!!! Love the wrapped hook. Great idea

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  13. These are gorgeous! I love copper! Thanks for nominating me for the award, but I am not really accepting awards anymore....plus I have gotten bad about being on-again-off-again with my blog. Still it was a lovely gesture, and I appreciated it very much!

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  14. who needs jewelry! you've already made art! :)

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  15. These are such great closures! I really like that fold over one with the wire wrapping. That has such potential for design variations and usefulness with various media... All wonderful!

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Thanks for your comments. I enjoy hearing from you!