Upcycling - Part Two

In my last post, I showed you some raw electrical copper and some small ceramic tiles I was planning on upcycling into a new creation.  I wanted to show you my progress.

This is the raw copper I was using from an electrical job I worked on.  It's 12 gauge copper, I determined, so it needed to be annealed before I could do anything with it!

 This is the copper after annealing and hammering.

 This is the copper after adding some texture.  Have to anneal again to make it straight!

 Copper after being annealed, it has a lot of firescale on it.  You can get rid of this easily with pickle.  I use warm pickle, I don't have a pickle pot so I just make a fresh batch each time. Maybe some day I'll get myself a pot just for pickle!

  This is the copper after pickling, then patinating with Liver of Sulphur, and doing a light sand on it to bring out highlights.  Filed the ends to make them smooth.  Then I sealed it with renaissance wax.

 Arranging the tiles.  I found out E6000 glue will not stick to a piece polished with renaissance wax, so I had to sand the area where the tiles were going to go.

 Making sure I like the placement of the tiles.

 These tiles are finally glued on.  I now have to decide what type of necklace to make with this pendant.  I really like it as a statement to what you can do with "spare parts" but don't know that I would actually wear something like this - would you?

Susan Kennedy
SueBeads

Upcycling? Recycling? Which am I doing????

I'm not sure what the exact title of this post should be, because I'm not sure what I'm doing!  I am "re-using" some things in a different way so I suppose it's both.  I'll start at the beginning!  Below you see my work bench - excuse the mess.

 The last time I made glass beads (months ago), I noticed that the sheet metal that was applied to my wood table was coming up at the seam where hot glass generally flies.

 You can see that it's right under my torch, and was going to continue to happen.  I didn't want the table to get totally ruined because it has some sentimental value - it was my grandmother's kitchen table!  Also, I was concerned that at some point, a hot enough piece of glass might start the table on fire...

 So my boyfriend made me a table top out of wood, and he covered it with ceramic tile.

 Ever the professional, he couldn't let it go without adding a little finishing detail!  He's just like that!

 When he was finished with the edge, he had a few pieces of this small square tile left.  They were sitting on another table of mine, and I just couldn't help but think I could do something creative with them, other than mosaic.  I guess this is the upcycling part.

 That's when I thought about using them for a pendant.  I really like the color combination and even though they aren't using any of my own beads as the pendant, it would be my creation.  So, how to connect them?

 Since my boyfriend is a general contractor, when I am out on jobs with him and we are doing electrical work, I get all the leftover copper wire!  This is probably 14 gauge copper wire (I think) and I think this might be my answer.  So this would be the recycling part.

I'm going to try and flatten the wire, and use it on the back of the tiles to connect them.  I think I'll texture the wire, use E6000 to glue them together, and have a little bit of the wire showing between the tiles.  The bail will probably start out at the top of the piece of wire as a simple curve.  I hope it works.  I can see a necklace with this!

Stay tuned, my next post will be my progress and (hopefully) completion of this little project!

 Susan Kennedy
SueBeads Etsy
SueBeads Web Site