Eureka! This week has the important distinction of being the week I finished a collaboration with another talented crafter, Mollie Ann, of Rough Magic Creations. It all began when the Etsy Maine Team came up with a 4th of July Team Challenge, to create (by yourself or with a partner) a holiday-themed piece for Independence Day. Being the enormous fan of red, white and blue that I am (my photo background has been only that, lately!) I was super psyched.
I got in touch with Mollie, knowing that she was way more talented with metal than me. I’ve been thinking for a long time about branching out of the bottle cap bezel world, and this was a great first opportunity. Mollie and I put our heads together to make a star-shaped earring and pendant with a circular bezel hammered right in the center. Here is our initial sketch:
And by 'sketch,' I mean image of a star I copied and drew elements on!
From there, we agreed that sheet aluminum would have the right color we were looking for (Mollie usually uses copper, but the silver color and price point of aluminum worked well with our design) so she ordered it and I waited with much anticipation to receive my new bezels in the mail!
Empty Bezels, Waiting for their stars + stripes
Finally (okay, I say ‘finally’ but it was so fast, like a day later! I was just like an excited kid on Christmas morning) I received the lovely pieces (pictured above) in the mail, ripe for the epoxy-ing! After cutting some custom size circles, gluing and mixing epoxy Mollie and I were the proud parents of the pieces you see below:
Stars and Stripes Earrings, $26 on Etsy
Stars and Stripes Pendant (You pick stars or stripes) $24 on Etsy
Stars and Stripes Earrings and Pendant Set, $48 on Etsy
Mollie and I are so pleased at how these turned out! The photo prototypes are our ‘rough drafts’ so we’ve made some changes, including making the bezels deeper so that the epoxy doesn’t bleed around the edges of the circle … which you can kind of see in the picture but won’t be an issue on any further runs of the sets. If you’re interested in ordering a pair of earrings, a necklace, or a set of earrings and a necklace please know you can specify what combination of stars and stripes you’d like! Order from either Mollie or I in our Etsy shops (you can click on the images to link to the listings) and let us know what you’d like! We can also do the stars with totally different images, not just stars and stripes. 🙂 The stars and stripe sets are made of lightweight charms with a nickel ball chain for the necklaces and sterling silver ear wires for those of us with sensitive ears!
All orders received by June 22nd should be shipped to you in time for the 4th of July.
Little Eye Designs 