clearning out my 2012 picture files

I did this etched plate and used some of it for the bead soup blog hop last year   I thought I worked fabulously so I wanted to make another.  I use the glass cab to figure out what pattern I wanted as the background....

Then a sharpie marker to trace my shape out.  Don't worry.. a little rubbing alcohol takes the marker right off.

Since it's only 24 GA I used shears to cut it out.  I"m somewhat ( I'm afraid to admit) sawing impaired.  it's on my wish list this winter-break to use the saw more.

Then I filed, sanded, cleaned, patina'd , polished and assembled the pieces.  I originally planned on a large necklace with multiple etched brass pieces but I couldn't ever make it look right.  I finally settled on just making it a pendant necklace.  I still have large chunks of that etched brass plate to play with -- yum!

I still have a few pics in the files from last year that I want to blog about, and then we will get to the new stuff! woot!  Back in February of last year, I participated in the Bead Soup Blog Hop  and had a blast!  I made a glass cab, then mounted it on brass etched plate.  I liked how it looked so much I set up a second one at the same time for me to play with later.  Well, later was much later... It got shifted around from this pile of projects to that pile of projects.. I guess I didn't really want to work on it because I'd lost my vision of it.  I had plans to make a very large, segmented collar necklace with multiple brass pieces .. I even cut out 4 of links.  But when I tried to put it together it just didn't look right.. certainly not like the idea in my head.  So the poor thing got politely ignored until this fall, when I finally gave up the collar idea and just made it a pendant necklace.  I like it better this way.. I think the collar idea wasn't working because there was too much going on.. you were not sure if the main thrust of the necklace was the glass cab or the etched brass.  Now it feels much more married in the design, just keeping it simple.  On Project runway, they call this "editing" .  ( I love that show!)