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:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boot Camp!

I have really enjoyed following along with some the great ideas posted at Love My Art Jewelry in preparation for their 2nd 2013 Boot Camp -Blog Hop. And now finally, today is the big day for the official blog hop. This one is all about textured metals and I really have had some fun these past few weeks taking my hammer to various pieces of metal. Here is what I have completed so far:



Copper and Brass Rustic Earrings



The copper strips  in the earrings shown above were stamped with a washer.  I learned that masking tape works really well at holding the washers in place while hammering.

Brass and Copper Pendant

The brass pendant was stamped with washers, steel wire and a paperclip. A copper wire wrapped green glass drop was added for color. I also plan to add matching green glass beads to the chain to make the piece complete.

I have built up quite an inventory of copper and brass textures to use for later. Here is a sample of some of the other pieces I am working on...

Work in Process

My work in process includes a second pair of dangles for earrings, a brass notebook pendant, and copper and brass link for a bracelet. These are the pieces I have buffed and polished so far. There's also plenty more rough textured pieces to cut and buff later.

This was a fun project and I look forward to seeing what everyone has put together. Be sure to click on the Boot Camp logo over in the left margin and see...

Boot Camp!

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SIGN ME UP FOR BOOT CAMP!

 

Sorry, did not mean to disappoint you, this is not that new 5:00 a.m. Saturday morning workout that is being sponsored over at the local "Y". But actually its even better, Love My Art Jewelry is holding its second JEWELRY BOOT CAMP challenge and it's all about textured metal. For the next few weeks, they will be sharing inexpensive ways to texture metal BY HAND meaning no specialized equipment for etching, stamping, embossing, sandblasting or even rolling milling... (sp! ?).  Got an old hammer?

They will finish textured metal with a blog hop on April 8th so everyone can share what they have been working on. And then its on to the next topic... save your fancy tools for next month.  I'm in.

 

SIGN ME UP FOR BOOT CAMP!

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Happy St. Patty's Day! 

 

And be sure to stop by Ocean Breeze's blog just because it would not be St. Patty's day without a little Irish Dancing! Even if it is a bit eclectic ;)