My Necklace as seen on The Vampire Diaries, Soldering Metal Clay to Sheet Metal, and Another Etsy SEO Tool

Orders for “The Vampire Diaries” necklace are really keeping me busy.  I may not have told you before, but back in November, the main character of The Vampire Diaries (Elena Gilbert played by Nina Dobrev) wore a necklace I designed and made for the stylist to consider for use on the show.  The necklace is made from soldered sterling silver spirals laid into a circle.  The episode aired on Nov 20, 2014 entitled "Fade Into You".

 

If you want to see the listing for it, click here (for my website) or here (for Etsy).

So did everyone have a great New Year celebration?  I wish you all an even better 2015.

We had some people over for New Year’s eve and it was really nice… including the obligatory spinach dip with sourdough bread followed by Kahlua and cream.  I’m still reeling.

Needless to say, with carrying boxes, moving furniture, cleaning and painting (from the move) there was not much jewelry making to be had at the start of this new year.  But I had class yesterday and right before class started I decided to experiment more with combining sheet metal and metal clay.

I took this copper disc...

... and turned it into a tiny bowl. 

Then I soldered one copper metal clay leaf to it followed by two rose bronze disks.  

I did find it hard to tell when my solder flashed/melted since it was underneath the metal clay pieces and hidden from view.  Tried to do the “wait for it to fall” thing, but there wasn’t much movement (I think that’s easier to see with flat pieces).

In the end, however, it came out fine. 

 

Truthfully, the first two attachments (hard solder followed by medium solder) were aces.  It was adding that third piece (easy solder) that gave me trouble.  I was explaining to my student that I’d only try it three times before giving up.

It’s not that I’m a defeatist, but on certain days certain things just don’t work and pushing it never amounts to any success.  I find this particularly true for two things… soldering and enameling.

If I’m trying to do something and it’s not working, time after time, I find that if I quit and come back to it in a day or two, things usually go swimmingly.

BTW, for those always on the lookout for more tools to improve or work on their Etsy SEO (search engine optimization), here’s one to add to the list: http://tools4etsy.com/Wall-e/Relevancy/Keyword/