Brass Pendant- How I Did It!

Heya! So with all the new jewelry going up in my shop, I thought you might enjoy a little behind the scenes peek on how some of it is made! The following is a pendant that I made for myself and I'll show you how I did it!

 1- Starting with a flat brass sheet. I believe it was somewhere around 18-20 gauge.

 

 2- I used my super nifty circle cutter (my Christmas gift last year!) and a heavy brass hammer to cut the circle for the pendant out of the sheet. The cutter can cut circles of many different sizes. You secure the metal between the two steel plates with the corresponding hole size you'd like to cut. You then insert the die (the cylindrical piece in the first and third pictures that actually does the cutting) into the hole and pound the ever loving crap out of it till it cuts all the way through the metal!

 3- Sand and polish till shiny! (I shall spare you the tedium by only using one picture. But please note, this takes FOREVERRRRRRRR!!!) Basically you work your way down through increasingly smoother grits of sandpaper (I use about three different ones) and then polish and smooth further with steel wool.

 

 4- I pulled out my metal stamps and used an ink pad to stamp the desired phrase onto paper. ("Here comes the sun" from one of my favorite Beatles songs) Cut up, it helps me decide the placement of the stamps on my piece and to make sure everything will fit.

5- Once I had decided my placement, I drew a guide line down the right side of the circle. I used this to line up my stamps starting from right to left on each line. The stamping is done on a steel block (which is the shiny silver behind the brass). This gives you a nice strong base. Wood and other softer surfaces have too much give and bounce and would not produce a clean deep stamp. When the metal is pressed between the steel block and the steel stamp, it is compressed rather than pushed outward thus keeping your piece flat.

6- A bit more sanding and polishing to remove the sharpie line

 7- Deciding I wanted it textured, I used another hammer with rounded head to essentially beat the metal into submission :)

This is also done on a steel block (which you can now see the entirety of) for the same reason as above. 

8- This nifty little gadget is a metal hole punch. Each end has a different size punch you use the handles to screw down into and cut the metal. Similar concept to the hole cutter only using the pressure from the screw instead of the hammer. (Also, much tinier circles) This is what I used to add the hole in my pendant that it will hang from.

9- Voila! With the addition of a jump ring and a chain, the pendant is ready to wear!