Guest Blog Post: Christmas Tree Nails by Jennifer Strong of NeverTooMuchGlitter

In the giving spirit of the holiday season, we have a special gift for you! Our featured artist Jennifer Strong of NeverTooMuchGlitter has created another nail art tutorial for our blog readers! We're very thankful to Jen for continuing to share her wisdom in the ways of glitter with us. These festive nails would be a great way to glam up a holiday look for a special occasion. Continue reading to learn how to make your own 3D nail designs this holiday season:

The festive season is upon us! For those of us in the Christmas spirit, why not do a little holiday nail art to spread the good cheer? This easy-to-do nail art look is sure to bring a smile.

Paint the nails in a light metallic color of your choice. Let dry.

Paint on a long, thin triangle for your tree. You can use the traditional green, or go for any other color you like!

While the tree is still wet, drag the needle across in a wavy shape to add detail.

Now here's the fun part: Add your ornaments to the tree! You can press them into wet polish and seal with a topcoat, but a glue is a better choice for a longer lasting manicure. If you're using artificial nails, try a craft adhesive. For natural nails, try a dab of liquid nail glue.

 You can add a star on your tree with a metal stud, or try drawing one with a complimentary color of nail polish. 

You can add a tree on each nail, or do some quick and easy accent nails with your dotting tool. Some fun options are French tip, dots or stripes. It's up to you!

Thanks so much to Jen for creating this festive tutorial for last minute holiday glam and for sharing her wonderful designs with us! Be sure to check out NeverTooMuchGlitter for stunning nail art for all year long. 

Guest Blog Post: Halloween Nails by Jennifer Strong of NeverTooMuchGlitter

In the spirit of the Halloween season, we have a special treat for you! Our featured artist Jennifer Strong of NeverTooMuchGlitter has written a tutorial for our blog readers on how to create your very own Halloween Nail art. Continue reading to learn how to make your own 3D nail designs this holiday season:

Halloween is a great opportunity to show off some fantastic seasonal nail art. With vintage rhinestones and cabochons from Bumbershoot Supplies, you can create a one-of-a-kind look for all your upcoming spooky events!

For the most impact, get some press-on nails from your local drugstore or beauty supply shop. Adhesive tabs allow the false nails to be applied and removed easily. A nail art pen is an easy to use option for adding designs, but a permanent marker may be used as well (however, it's best not to use these on natural nails as it may stain the nail bed for a few days).

You Will Need

Once you've got your supplies together, check out the tutorial below for some fun ideas!

For natural nails, the steps are the same- but instead of applying stones to the nails with the glue, simply apply them on a layer of wet topcoat.

Go forth and be spooky!

Thanks so much to Jen for creating this tutorial and for sharing her wonderful designs with us! Be sure to check out NeverTooMuchGlitter for stunning nail art for all year long. 

Using Vintage Flower Cabochons: DIY Embellished Sun (flower) glasses

 

We've been long enamored of Dolce & Gabbana's Autumn/Winter 2012-13 collection. Big accessories with even bigger jewelry makes this collection remarkable.  

With spring vacation just around the corner, and the promise of warm sandy beaches in the near future, we got to thinking about some pairs of stand out sunglasses.

Inspired by Dolce & Gabanna and this and this, we whipped up a couple pairs of our own beflowered sunnies.

 

We pulled out a large box of flower cabochons and used glue dots to temporarily adhere the cabs to the glasses to plan out a design. 

All of the vintage Japanese and vintage West Geman flower cabochons used are available at Bumbershoot Supplies.

 

 

When we were pleased with the arrangement of flowers, we used E6000 glue to permanently adhere the cabochons to the glasses. (Our pointers for working with E6000 glue here!)

Definitely wait a while for each piece to become firm before gluing the next piece on. 

With these bright sunnies everyone at the pool will know that you're no shrinking violet! 

Spring Fun: Hand Carved Bumbershoot Rubber Stamps

 

Here at Bumbershoot we love rubber stamps. We use them in our mixed media art all the time. So we thought it would be fun to make our own stamps based on our logo, the little green bumbershoot.

 

 

We hand carved our stamps out of a block of carving rubber, but you can even use an ordinary eraser as a base. You can find a really excellent tutorial on how to do that here. Geninne's Art Blog did a whole series of interesting posts on stamp carving too! We used Speedball's block printing cutting tool for cutting and gouging the block, and ordinary scissors for trimming the completed stamp.

 

 

We experimented with different sizes and even freehanded this little stylized bell-shaped bumbershoot. 

 

 

In the end we liked best the results we got from tracing the bumbershoot logo and transferring it to the rubber. We used ordinary waxed paper to trace and transfer.

 

 

Jim made this stamp! It is our favorite, with the really crisp lines and perfect size. 

 

We had a lot of fun going through our stamp pad collection and trying out colors. Those test sheets are now a work of art as well. They would make great wrapping paper.

We had so much fun carving out little bumbershoots, and we're looking forward to sharing them with you. Watch your invoices - you never know when a colorful little bumbershoot may appear!

Tutorial: A Simple Way to Alter Patina on Vintage Brass

This post will share one method I use to clean and change the patina of vintage brass.

We stock a lot of materials at Bumbershoot Supplies that are made of or contain brass components. Of course, raw, unsealed or untreated brass develops a patina over time. Sometimes that is a very pleasing effect and quite desirable for vintage-inspired designs.

These brass beads, for example, have a fabulous gingerbread patina that is simply gorgeous.

Sometimes, however, the character of the patina is not quite right for the particular design purposes.

For example, consider these charms from 1950’s Japan, which we stock at Bumbershoot Supplies. You can see that the patina is uneven. For my particular designs I wanted a vintage inspired look and I was concerned that using them as is might make them look vintage, but not inspired. What to do? I show another example of the same thing below.

There are choices. I could try to clean up the brass, restoring it to the original golden color. Or I could use chemicals to patina all of the brass, making it all a uniform dark color.

In this case, I decided to try to see if this brass could be brought back to its original golden color. You can polish brass of course - I often use ProPolish pads to check the brass stampings and findings that come into Bumbershoot Supplies. I could also use a toothbrush and polishing paste. But with wire, and tiny components with uneven patina like these charms, I want an approach that is much, much quicker. So I decided to soak them in a lemon juice and salt solution to see what happened. 

You need:

A small plastic or glass container

Lemon juice

Salt

Mix some salt into the lemon juice. I’ll be honest, I don’t measure. The dish in the photo probably holds ¼ cup lemon juice and I just threw in a bit of salt. Then, toss in the items you want to clean.

And wait. Usually I don’t have to wait very long. Sometimes the removal of the patina is within minutes, rarely it takes a few hours. I just check regularly until I can see the process is complete. By the way, I'm told that vinegar works too, I haven't tried that yet.

Note that with these particular charms, some came very clean of patina and are now golden in color, and others are revealed to be a mottled golden and reddish color. This is the end point for these charms.  Further time in the lemon juice and salt mixture will not convert them to a uniform golden color since this reflects the characteristics of the old brass from which they were made and the oxidation reaction that caused the original patina.

Now I have another decision point. Do I work with the mottled charms as they are, or do I go the other direction, and use chemicals to patina the brass to a uniform dark color? Since I am looking for a uniform appearance, I decided to darken them.

Here’s what it looks like to dunk the mottled charms into a patina solution – they darken up nicely and uniformly. This picture actually shows 2 lots of charms: 1) two of the charms from above that were first in the lemon juice-salt solution and 2) one charm that I put directly into the patina solution without going through lemon juice-salt first. I can't tell the difference. You could, at this point, polish these charms a bit to bring out golden highlights on the textured jump ring, or you could leave them as is.

Sometimes the lemon juice and salt soak works quite well. In the photo above, I show some 1940’s occupied Germany glass and brass wired flower clusters that came out nicely golden after being in lemon juice and salt. I also put these in patina solution, that cluster is shown on the right. The original is in the middle. The result you get from a lemon juice and salt soak depends on the characteristics of the original brass, the characteristics and age of the patina, and the shape of the metal, for example, plate vs. wire, wire thickness, twists, and so on.

One side effect of using lemon juice and salt to remove patina from brass is that it cleans up glass beads too. I had tried many methods to get the beads in these charms clean and pretty much despaired of being able to use them. Then, in looking for materials to use for this tutorial, I tossed these into the lemon juice and salt, and look at how clean these beads are now! Originals on the left, soaked bead on the right. And no effort on my part, I love that.

One thing I have found in working with vintage materials, is that it helps if you can locate that adventurous part of yourself, the part that is curious and willing to take risks, even take a risk with a piece or two of your materials to see what will happen. This is because vintage materials are unpredictable and you can’t guarantee results. Start slow, just a few or even one piece at a time to see what happens.

And let me know how it goes!

Tutorial: Tips for Working With Beads on Wire or Wired Headpins

Whenever I get the chance, I love to work with all kinds of glass on embedded wire, including beads, headpins, and wired flowers. To me, they encompass all that is wonderful about vintage materials - great and innovative glass composition and colors, individually hand formed shapes full of character, and a connection to artisans and designers of the past. And just because something is called a headpin, doesn't mean I use it that way. It may be the perfect tiny bead drop or button once I have turned it into one :)

Here’s a few tips I’ve learned while working with these special beads.

First, whether the wire is long or has already been looped, check it for structural integrity. Some patina or tarnish may add desired character, but as beads with wire age, their wires can become fragile with time. Before using them in designs, I twist and turn every bead's wire to ensure the wire is secure in the glass and can be manipulated without breaking.

Note that vintage glass pearls may show discoloration of the wires due to the way they were made.  With the vintage grey pearls shown above, each bead was individually dipped several times in the solution that forms the nacre of the glass pearl, so you can see residual grey nacre on the wire.

I always handle wired beads gently. The most vulnerable spot is at the connection of the bead with the wire. To turn beads on wire into drops that you can use as dangles in your designs, with one pair of pliers (narrow chain nose, on the left in the photo), hold the headpin securely at the base of the wire near the glass. Using a second pair of pliers (round nose on the right in the photo), turn the loop from the end of the wire in. That way you won't stress the connection.

For thinner gauges of wire, I often create a loop with 2 layers of wire, rather like a split ring. Sometimes I create this on the bead and use a jump ring to connect the bead into my designs.  Sometimes I connect the bead directly onto the chain or wire of the design.

Alternatively, you can estimate the amount of wire you need for a loop and clip the excess wire off first, then turn from the end in towards the glass to form a single thickness loop. I am more likely to chose this approach with sturdier, thicker gauge wires.

Finally, sometimes I choose to create a design that will form the loop further along the wire, instead of right at the base against the glass. For example, in these earrings, I placed a bead cap and a bead on the wire first, isolating and protecting the join of the bead and wire, and then created my loop above this stack. This is another method to decrease stress on the join between the wire and the bead. In this case, I also created a double loop because the gauge of these wires is so thin.

I hope these tips are helpful. If you’ve worked with these types of beads before and have other thoughts on how to successfully incorporate them in designs, please let us know!

And what to do if you end up with a broken wire anyway? Well, I clip the wire close to the bead, essentially turning those beads into cabochons or no-hole beads and then I glue them into my jewelry or mixed media design. And on occasion, I have even been known to specifically cut the wires off...  No rules :)

Tutorial: How to Set Vintage Rhinestones in Pronged Settings

Here are some basic tips for setting a pointed back rhinestone into a pronged setting.  We offer many vintage rhinestones and antiqued brass prong settings at Bumbershoot Supplies, and it is so satisfying and fun to set these vintage jewels and quickly create dangles, earrings, pendants, embellishments for jewelry and mixed media art.

You will need:

pointed back rhinestones

pronged settings to fit the rhinestones, with open or closed backs

wide flat nosed pliers

And perhaps: pointed flat note pliers, wire cutters (to address mistakes, see below)

There are also special prong setting tools, but I can’t speak about those since I don’t own one. I use the pliers shown.

1) Place the stone so it is sitting level in the setting. Ideally the edge of the stone will be just above the top of the setting. This sounds straightforward, but it is not always easy to fit vintage rhinestones into contemporary settings, even when both are supposedly the same size. You may need to open the prongs a bit, bending them gently out and away from the center of the setting. See tips section below for more on this process.

2) Firmly hold the stone in place with your thumb and index finger of your nondominant hand. Depending on the size of the stone and your thumb, yes, the prongs will stick into your finger a bit. Hold the stone in the middle so it stays balanced in the setting.

3) While continuing to hold the stone firmly, push down each prong with the wide flat nosed pliers. It is important to hold the stone firmly so it doesn’t slide or move around while you are setting it. I like to get each of the prongs (often 4 total) down and then go around again to tighten them.

Some Additional Tips:

1) Be careful if working with open backed settings so the back side of your pliers does not scratch the back of your stone.

2) Sometimes to fit a vintage rhinestone into a setting, you may need to open the prongs a bit, bending them gently out and away from the center of the setting. It’s sort of like hyper extending the prong. If you need to do this, go slowly and gently. Open all 4 prongs just a bit, see how the stone fits, then repeat. You want to manipulate the prongs as little as possible so they don’t weaken. You may even have to do this with rhinestones that come from the same lot – one may fit the settings just fine, the other may require more manipulation.

3) Don’t press too hard on the prongs first time around. You can chip and even break stones by pressing too hard, not that I would know anything about this personally, of course… :)

4) Try pushing prongs down on the diagonal. Often there are 4 prongs in a setting. Start pushing down one prong, then do the one diagonally opposite it, then finish with the last 2 prongs. This can help hold the stone level in the setting.

5) With practice, you will find the motion to push those prongs down. It’s sort of a rolling motion, with the pliers positioned towards the base of the prong, and the movement is pressing forward and down.

6) When you are learning to set stones, and even when you have been setting them for years, settings can get scratched, stones can slip and sit crookedly in settings and so on. In these circumstances, you may want to start over and reset your rhinestone in a new setting. I am told that a special prong setting and lifting tool works for lifting prongs up so you can reposition the stone to reset it. But like I said, I don't have one of those tools, so here is what I do: Sometimes I use a pair of narrow, pointed flat nosed pliers to lift the prongs enough to remove the stone and start again. Sometimes I actually use wire cutters to clip the prongs at the base where the prong attaches to the setting, in order to remove the prongs so I can get the stone out. I use just the tip of the cutters and go slowly so as not to scratch or cut the stone. My default is always “save the stone”. The reason I often decide to sacrifice the setting when my stone goes in crooked is because with repeated opening and closing, the prongs weaken and can snap. If you are repairing or replacing stones in a piece of costume jewelry, of course you must work with the existing setting. Otherwise it’s your decision: you can try to reuse the setting, or you can sacrifice it and start anew.

7) When you are learning, expect to lose a few settings and stones. There is nothing like practice to improve your ability to set all shapes and sizes of rhinestones in all kinds of settings. But no matter your level of experience, you will occasionally scratch settings, chip stones, have to reset stones, and so on. Be sure to have enough patience and supplies on hand to account for these occurrences.

8) If I want to be particularly careful when setting a stone, I use a small piece of quilting cotton and press the prongs down using the cotton as a barrier between my pliers and the setting. This takes a bit of practice, since you can’t see the setting as well, but it can decrease the chance of scratches to the setting and to the back of the stone if you are using open backed settings.

When I was teaching my daughter Emma to do this:

1) We started with octagon stones in the 10x8mm size. The octagons are essentially rectangles with rounded corners and they give the eye a direction for where the prongs ought to go. Plus you are pressing a straight edge (the prong) against another straight edge (the stone). Emma also found this size to fit easily with her thumbs and fingers.

2) It may be counter intuitive, but I taught Emma using the more expensive stones – she actually learned on vintage machine cut Swarovski crystal stones, such as the green turmaline shown above. This is because these stones are so precisely cut that they fit really well into contemporary settings, unlike many other vintage rhinestones that are more roughly molded and may require some finesse and patience to set.

3) One thing to consider is using raw brass settings for practice stone setting. I do not recommend using raw brass for most jewelry designs for various reasons (and that is the subject of another upcoming blog post) but raw brass settings are the least expensive to purchase and may be a good choice for practice – sometimes you can feel a bit better about gaining experience when it costs a bit less. If you don’t want to use raw brass settings in your jewelry, you can just plan on removing the stones from the settings after you’ve practiced with them.

We did have to throw away a few settings, but using stones and settings that fit well together, and using the octagon shape, Emma was setting stones in no time – literally within minutes.

And if you want something even easier, at Bumbershoot Supplies, you will find a small number of glue-in settings designed specifically for larger pear and oval pointed back rhinestones. If you choose to glue-in instead, there is a tips for gluing tutorial on my blog, here.

Many thanks to Emma for serving as demonstrator for this post!

And here is what we did with these rhinestones:

Tutorial: Tips for Gluing Vintage Glass and Plastic Cabochons

It's easy to use vintage glass and plastic cabochons in mixed media and jewelry arts, and one of the easiest ways to incorporate them in your art is to glue them.

With gluing, you can make layered designs, such as the ring above....

You can make your own charms and embellishments, for jewelry or mixed media....

You can make stud earrings...

You can use gluing as a step to secure cabochons to a filigree and then wrap filigree around them.  Or in this example, I will use glue to secure the rhinestone into the pronged setting, since this particular stone and setting are not exactly matched, and without the glue, the stone will slide just a little...

You get the idea.  I've pulled together these tips for gluing vintage glass and plastic cabochons into your mixed media and jewelry designs, things that I've learned through trial and error over the years.

1) Work in a well ventilated area. 

2) Use the right glue.
Craft glues or hot glue will not give you the bond and/or the professional finish. I've tried lots and lots of glues, and I now use E6000. I'm guessing there are other jewelry glues that also would be effective, but since E6000 works really reliably for me, I'm sticking with it (ha ha...) E6000 dries out pretty quickly, so I usually purchase small tubes now. You want it to be clear and stringy. Once it is cloudy or thicker, the bond is not as strong.

3) Clean your metal and maybe your cabochons. 

Use a cotton swab and dampen with rubbing alcohol, squeeze out the excess and swab the metal surface to be glued. Then flip the cotton swab over and use the dry end to dry where you have swabbed. I always do this cleaning step for metal surfaces, which can have oils or residues from their processing.  I don't always do it for the cabochons, it depends. If they are plain glass on their backs, I always clean them. If they are foiled on their backs, I never clean them. I often clean plastics, but not always. I've worked with a lot of different types of vintage plastics and not had a problem, especially since I am immediately drying the cab with the other end of the swab. However, if you have any doubts or you are unsure about the material you are working with, don't apply any sort of solvent to it.

4) Put your glue on the smaller of the two surfaces to be joined. 
So, if you want to glue a glass cabochon onto a metal bezel or setting to make a charm or pendant, put the glue on the glass cabochon. If the cabochon has a rim, like the one in the photo above, spread the glue on the rim.  If you want to glue an earring post onto a cabochon to make a stud earring, put the glue onto the earring post.  Spread a thin layer of glue as close to the edges of the surface as possible. Covering the surface as completely as possible is important to getting a good bond.

5) I use a highly technical and specialized tool to apply glue, the rounded wooden toothpick :)

I use this to pick up glue and put it onto the surface(s) of items I am gluing, I use the dry end to gently press surfaces together, such as pressing a cabochon into a bezel setting, or pressing an earring post pad onto a cabochon, and I use it for scraping up excess glue from places I don't want glue to be.

6) To glue things with a rounded or irregular surface or shape, use a bowl of rice.

Nestle the cabochons, earrings, charms, bezels, whatever you are gluing, into the rice to dry.  Above, I show cufflinks drying, post down.

This works well for making stud earrings, and also really helps with making charms and pendants that are not completely flat, for example, those with a bail.  Save your rice in the plastic container for the next time. I have a dedicated rice bowl in my studio for this purpose.

7) If necessary, glue under magnification.
I usually use high powered reading glasses so I can see the positioning and and remove any unwanted glue.

It helps alot if the glasses are cool colors with hand painted embellishments :)

Additional suggestions:

1) In addition to working in a well ventilated area, I often do my gluing at the very end of my day, and then leave my studio so the fumes completely dissipate before I return to my studio in the morning.

2) If you are gluing a cabochon into a setting or bezel, it is obvious where the cab should be positioned. But sometimes you may be gluing a cabochon to a filigree, or an earring pad to a cabochon, and where you glue will affect the presentation of your piece. Check the positioning of your items before gluing as much as is possible, to ensure the finished product will work the way you want it to.  Here's an idea from my mixed media background: Play around with positioning using glue dots, you know, those dots of glue that come on strips of paper.  You can temporarily adhere your cabochon to the base to check positioning, then remove the glue dot and use permanent glue to glue the cabochon securely in the location you want.

3) What if you use too much glue? If you see glue oozing out where you don't want to see it, use the dry end of the toothpick to gently and carefully scrape up the glue. Wipe your toothpick on a rag, and go back in to get more of the excess glue off. I recommend a rag, not a paper towel, since the paper can get stuck to the toothpick. If it's really just a gloppy mess, pull the two surfaces apart, and if the surfaces are the right type, clean both with isopropyl alcohol to remove the glue residue from both surfaces, dry, and start again.

4) I always dry overnight, no matter what the glue container says.

5) I do quality control. I check my materials before gluing to be sure they are the condition I want.  After gluing, basically, I try my darndest to pry apart the glued items.

I hope this is helpful.  If you have additional suggestions or experiences with gluing cabochons, I'd love to hear them!