opal | 
11 21st, 2008| 
I like the shiny. I like it a lot. But sometimes the shiny just isn’t the right look for a piece of jewelry. So I decided to antique a few pieces.
I started by boiling a couple of eggs for about 15-20 minuntes.
woohoo! boiling eggs! how exciting!
Then I laid out all the pieces of jewelry I wanted to antique flat in an airtight bag with the eggs. I proceeded to crush the eggs until the yolks were exposed. I wanted to get a picture of all this action, but the best I could do was this:
the steam defies me!
The steam did not cooperate with the picture taking.
Backtracking to the night before when I had tried this method with only one egg cut in half and a mayonaisse jar. The results weren’t so spectacular.
this don't look so good.
The jar didn’t work well because I couldn’t turn the jewelry and because I had so many pieces of jewelry I really did need more then one egg.
After about 35-40 minutes of obsessively checking on the pieces and turning them so they were evenly oxidized, I decided that I had achieved a decent patina.
oxidized jewelry
They still need to be polished in my little toy tumbler, but I like the way they look. I’m so glad I can achieve this particular effect without using any type of toxic chemicals. It’s good to be green! :)
Just for giggles, I’ll throw in a before and after shot of one of the pieces.
before
after
In other news, I have picked up the needles again! Yes! It’s true! Progress has been slow, but at least it’s there. So maybe there will be actual knitting to report on the knitting blog soon. Wouldn’t that be something? :-o
Happy Friday everyone! Have a smashing weekend. :-)
