Christmas post

I'm finally feeling Christmasy after a tough week or so. Christmas cake always makes me feel better so here's the first real cake post on here. I'm afraid I can't promise to keep you a piece!



More cake posts will follow in the new year and I'll keep my fingers crossed that they don't end up on cake wrecks - if you haven't seen this blog already you should check it out as it's seriously funny.

We haven't had time to put up any decorations so I hope all our presents are small enough to fit under this Christmas tree book that I've made (beautiful handmade cards from friends in the background).


Happy Christmas everyone!

It'll be lonely this Christmas

After the length of time it took me to make my brooch I was really excited to complete both a pair of earrings and a necklace at my class this week. In fact I was so excited I wore them all to work. But sadly on a lunchtime excursion (for kuchen) I lost one of the earrings. There wasn't even enough time to photograph the pair so here's the one lonely earring and necklace.


On the bright side the necklace on its own is very wearable.

Are we nearly there yet?

The brooch is finally finished. After a long saga of failed oxidation and scrubbing and yet more scrubbing the copper eventually turned black. And then it took just a matter of minutes to put it all together et voila:-


So now what? Well, I guess I'll have to try wearing it!

An excellent example of a displacement reaction

The aim was to turn the copper black. It worked but then sadly the 'black' rubbed off under water - not a good look on a rainy day. So I spent most of the class scrubbing the blackness off to the point where it now looks exactly the same as it did last week!

On a happier note I did manage to turn the small central bit (or carpel, if like Elanor you majored in biology) black using another dodgy looking solution. The addition of a pin is also critical to the effectiveness of the piece.

Next week I'll be putting the leaves in the dodgy solution (wish I could remember all that chemistry I did at school) and hopefully finishing off...