Leafy layers

I finally finished this piece, and I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

The project was from an online class from Jessica Cote (Rosy Revolver), and not something I would have ever come up with on my own! I learned new ways of doing some fundamentals (like fluxing and soldering). But I also I learned new skills like tinning the silver (flooding the back with solder to allow the layered look) to how to make all the little embellishments.

This is what the piece looked like after the liver of sulphur – yikes! Way too dark for my taste. Thankfully I had covered the bezel (setting) with clear nail polish, since the stone is clear and that would have looked terrible.

Here is what it looked like before the liver of sulphur.

And here is a minor catastrophe that we both survived … a major meltdown due to the torch being too hot and too long in one place. I can’t believe I recovered from this, to be honest! The leaves did slump a little bit from this, but considering how much worse it could have been, I am not complaining.

Here is what it looked like as I was laying the whole thing out.

And here is another shot of the little leaves that had to be sawed inside and out and then dapped (curved) to give the piece dimension.

Lots of hard work and attention to detail went into this piece – I am so happy with what I learned and how it turned out!