Tutorial No. 001, Part 2 - Violette Noble's resource guide and basic tips!

I hope you enjoyed my brass-oxidizing tutorial on oxidizing raw brass with ONLY AN OVEN!


I’d also like to share with a couple of wonderful sites that sell raw brass for a very good price and a few tips for working with brass! The sites below give you a better price the more you order but none of them are wholesale only....which is good because most of the time we don't need 1000 of something!

Some of them use the original antique machines so it’s very difficult to tell the antique pieces from the new pieces, especially after you’ve given them that lovely vintage patina!

Along the way I will also be showing you some of the pieces I've created using these fab antiqued brass stampings! ALL of the photos today combine new brass pieces that I antiqued and antique or vintage pieces! Don't they look wonderful together?








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www.fancifulsinc.com

I used to order all my raw brass from Fancifuls but I noticed the last time I ordered from them they had gotten pretty expensive. Compare prices and see which works best for you. There are a lot of suppliers that sell raw brass on ETSY in smaller amounts and believe it or not they may be the least expensive route to go.

Fancifuls always get back to you right away and are very easy to work with about shipping etc.

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www.guyotbrothers.com

If I recall correctly you have to order quite a bit from them for a good price AND they don't have an online catalog (last time I checked) but they will send you a catalog if you are interested and they have just about every design you can imagine. This company has been in business for YEARS and a good portion of the designs are created from the antique machines.

They are a fairly large company and take a while to get back to you but they are very nice and will work with you also.

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A few more TIPS!!

1) If you find a piece you’d love to use as a charm but it doesn’t have a ring you can just drill a tiny hole in it and attach it with a jump ring. The brass is fairly soft and drilling it with an electric drill and tiny drill bit is easy. It might need just a tiny bit of filing if there are rough edges.

2) If you have a piece that DOES have a ring and you don't want it....just clip it off with jewelry clippers and file down the rough edges. You can also bend it off by holding onto the ring with a small pair of jewelry pliers, hold the other part of the piece with another pair of pliers and bend back and forth till it breaks off. You might still need to file it a bit. (Michaels has a set of jewelry tools for about 10.00. They might not be the best quality ever but they are fine for the hobbyist. If you don't have any files an emery board will work ok too. I get mine in a big bunch at the dollar tree)

3) I know others will disagree with me but the best glue to use if you are going to attach brass to brass is E6000. It is very strong after it dries overnight but very flexible so that if you knock your piece against something it won't "snap" off like with epoxy or super glues. I like it too because if you get some, somewhere on your piece that you didn't plan on (HAPPENS TO ME EVERY TIME because it is quite goopy....use a toothpick to apply it!) then you can just wait about 15 minutes and it peels right off! When it dries overnight though..it takes a lot of muscle to pry it off.






GOOD LUCK and please feel free to ask questions or make comments! I would love to hear what you think and I would also LOVE to put you on my mailing list for future offers, tutorials, ideas and give-aways.

Just leave a comment for me here and don't forget to leave me your email address. (I will NEVER share it with anyone!)

Faithfully yours,
Violette Noble

Noble Studios Ltd.

www.noblestudiosltd.etsy.com

www.noblestudiosltd.blogspot.com

Tutorial No. 001, Part 1 - Oxidizing brass with Violette Noble

How to oxidize raw brass with something EVERYONE has in their kitchen!

I had plans last night to breeze through this tutorial almost feeling embarrassed about how easy this was but I decided to follow my own steps with some actual raw brass this morning to see where it lead me! The results were really quite amazing. Read my directions and then look at the pictures for the results! Even though I was so tempted to substitute my “perfect ones” for the “after” pictures I decided to show you exactly how mine turned out today! I really learned a lot and it was FUN!

I wrote the tutorial last night and my notes after doing it myself this morning, will be between the “********SIDE NOTE********”

OK here we go!

I’ve tried EVERYTHING to oxidize my raw brass to give it that captivating vintage patina and everything I tried was toxic, didn’t perform very well, was too expensive or was just too time consuming.

One day I was in my kitchen trying for the million-th time to think of something that would work and I thought…I wonder what would happen if I “burned them”. I think I’d seen somewhere that you could use a blow torch (you know that blow torch that you have laying around….) to make your brass dark.

So since my blow torch was in the shop, I decided to put it in my oven on its highest heat (500 degrees for mine) and give that a try and guess what? It worked!

Here’s what I’ve found works the best. LIGHTLY buff the pieces with fine steel wool and drop them into some water with about 1 Tablespoon of salt in it. This is just to remove the surface dirt and oils. Rinse them WELL in warm water and let them dry. Then just lay each piece, face up, on a cookie sheet covered with tin foil.

Here's what they look like when before you start!



Then put them in the oven and “bake” them for between 15 minutes and 1 hour. There really is no rhyme or reason why it takes 15 minutes some days and 1 hour other days but just check them every few minutes and pull them out when you’re happy with the color. **********SIDE NOTE: as they begin to turn you might have to check them every few SECONDS********** You do have to watch them carefully because when they start to turn dark it goes pretty quickly. I usually do it when I’m in the kitchen doing something else anyway,so that I don’t forget them.

When they’ve reached the desired color just pull them out and plunge them into cold water to stop the process…careful they are HOT! ********SIDE NOTE********I DID NOT put the large blue heart in cold water immediately when it came out of the oven and even though the blue color was just starting to appear it turned that GORGEOUS blue right before my very eyes! **********
Here's what mine looked like right after they came out of the oven and had cooled...I KNOW the large heart is not there but that will be a little later!




See how different they all look? In my mind the little "love bird" connector and the dragonfly turned out the best but that's just me. Don't worry....they aren't done yet!

Here's what they looked like after I buffed them a bit with steel wool. You can do it as little or as much as you like, depending on how "antique" you want your brass to look! (don't worry....the large ornate hearts are STILL TO COME!)




Sometimes they turn almost purple, which I love and one time they turned a beautiful turquoise color. I haven’t been able to reproduce that since (until this morning!) but it’s fun to see which way the heat makes them go each time. Sometimes there are places on the brass that are darker than others or little dots of color which looks GREAT! Brass doesn’t naturally oxidize perfectly anyway so this gives it an authentic appearance!********SIDE NOTE…the other day I forgot to clean them OR put them in salt water and then left them in for way too long BUT they were fine. I don’t think they would have turned out very well IF I had cleaned them SO you’ll need to experiment*********

If they get too dark or turn a weird color (which they have for me!) all you have to do is dip them in tarn-x and they turn BRIGHT gold again and you can repeat the process. Make sure you wash them well after you use the tarn-x. SIDE NOTE*******I found this morning that the ones I had dipped into tarn-x and tried to “re-bake” didn’t oxidize very well SO try and get it right the first time. If you don’t though….it just takes a little longer and you might end up with a color that wasn’t what you intended BUT that’s all part of the process!*****************



OK NOW for those hearts! Remember what it looked like before I started?



I decided just for fun to do three and look how they turned out....DRUM ROLL PLEASE~




Can you belive the variations? I couldn't! I've never seen one turn blue like that but I rather like it. It's a little too instense for me but I can see how it could look smashing!

NOW look at them after I bufed them a little bit with steel wool!

This last picture is buffed quite a bit and would be how I would like it and would use it!


Well believe it or not I have a lot more to say BUT I think I'll save that until tomorrow! I have some great sites for you that sell raw brass and some tips and hints for your jewelry making experience!

GOOD LUCK and please feel free to ask questions or make comments! I would love to hear what you think and I would also LOVE to put you on my mailing list for future offers, tutorials, ideas and give-aways.

Just email me at:

noblestudiosltd@london.com

and ask me to add you to my list! (your name and email will NEVER be shared with anyone else!)

Faithfully yours,
Violette Noble

Noble Studios Ltd.

www.noblestudiosltd.etsy.com
www.noblestudiosltd.blogspot.com

It begins...

Hello, fellow Imaginarians!

Here it is, our official Imaginarium Blog... this blog will be our hub of activity, a source of joy and entertainment for our fans and it will be our visual guide in an imaginary realm.

First and foremost, let me introduce myself:

I am Jessica, captain of The Imaginarium
and proprietor of Luminoddities



...and I am ALWAYS happy to hear from you!

The Imaginarium is an Etsy team born of a desire to join the wealth of unconventionally talented creators, artists and artisans already present in our beloved Etsy community. We are a team hell-bent on encouraging creativity, exploration and rampant inspiration... we hold no requirements of our members, other than a simple request to communicate and inspire eachother! Our jobs are to encourage CONSTANT GROWTH of our fellow teamates and their skills! What fun is an art that has grown stale? No fun at all!

Dear Members...
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... or either of our amazing Imaginarium Team leaders;
Violette (of NobleStudiosLtd)
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Priscilla (of ReadBetweenLines)

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COMING VERY SOON:
- interviews with Imaginarium Team Members
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