Just Keep Trying New Things

Just Keep Trying New Things

"Experience is the name everyone gives to mistakes." - Oscar Wilde

I signed up for a craft fair. This lead me to think, "Oh, I should do some quick and easy projects to get my inventory up." Then I went to Pinterest, where all the beautiful "easy" projects live. 

Aren't they beautiful and sparkly? They never dried! I think it was a bad mixture of the resin. 

I decided to try to make these copper pipe pendants. The tutorial leaves out a few details, like how to make sure the clay is the right depth. Or how to get the paper inserts the right size. I decided to forget it and leave the back off the next one, not too hard, just use tape and the resin will stay in. Yes, the tape trick worked, no the resin NEVER dried. Two weeks later and I hit the top with a butane torch to try and salvage the project... still sticky!

Still double sided, these sweet pendants are heavy, less glittery, and rely on sparkle paper to make them shine. The big filigree pendant on the far left has been successful so far, just a bit of cleaning up to get it show ready. 

I wanted to add little boxes as a gift with purchase sort of thing. So I used an Altoid tin, and I wanted to etch it. I've had fantastic luck with etching 20 gauge copper plate lately, so I just threw it in the same solution. Well, all my hard work washed off, and the silver colored tin got copper plated in the etchant solution. That bummed me out, so I went to the hardware store to clear my head. Now, I'm using scrapbook paper to cover the tins, it's got a lot more character to it! It's not the "steam punk shiny thing" that I had envisioned originally, but I think it's still a nicely styled gift box for higher priced items. 

The box on top was a shiny silver tin, then it went through the etch process and took on the copper from previous projects. The bottom box is the direction I'm moving in now. It's scrapbook papers, and maybe some little doo-dads to finish it up a bit. 

I think the lesson here is, don't start a new product line, one month before a show. That's when you make more of what works! In winter, when everything slows down, that is the time to experiment, with no looming deadline hanging over your head.

"Anyone who has never made a mistake, has never tried anything new." - Albert Einstein