How To Clean Fake Jewelry

Came across this very interesting video on YouTube over the weekend on how to clean your 'fake' jewelry. Erm, okay. On second thought, I don't really like to use the work 'fake'. Like it's a bluff or something. Haha!

And so it's not precious jewelry that people normally associate with the likes of  precious gems and metals. But we can call it costume jewelry! :D

Therefore I would rather say How To Clean Your COSTUME Jewelry rather than FAKE jewelry cuz I don't like how the word 'fake' makes the sentence sounds 'less dignified'. Well, whatever that is supposed to mean. :P

Anyway, I was intrigued enough to give it a try myself.

I literally went "Woah!" when I saw how the earrings turned out! Without hesitation, I went into the kitchen and bathroom to get ....
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these!

Well, I suppose all toothpaste will work the same although what did cross my mind were these:

1. The material of the jewelry. I have my reservation when it comes to cleaning silver jewelry with this method but precious metal aside, I wonder if it's going to clean effectively with all sorts of material or will the results vary with different materials. Well, even with the findings; we have silver plated, rhodium, nickel, copper, brass etc etc etc. I really can't tell the type of jewelry material in the video. I suspected nickel at first but I think it's way too bright for it to be classified as nickel.
2. The formula of the toothpaste. I mean, toothpaste these days are comes in all sorts of flavors and 'purpose' that you can't really help thinking that one toothpaste can be very different from another although it's only a toothpaste! One same brand of toothpaste probably have a few toothpaste product; for whiter teeth, sensitive teeth, stronger gum etc etc etc. There's so many choices!

Surely, the formulation for each is different and not just a marketing gimmick, rite? If so, will the different formulation affect the effectiveness? *shrugs*

I'll be using a different toothpaste (it's for sensitive teeth by the way :P) since I haven't got any Crest with me and a kitchen towel since the idea of rubbing toothpaste all over my hand does not appeal to me.

Smear it all over the kitchen towel for a more 'even coverage'......

I took out a pair of my old chandelier earrings to try. I'll be trying out on the earwires first. Rubbing toothpaste all over the earrings just doesn't sits well with me especially unlike the pair of earrings in the video which if you notice is solely metal, I've got crystal beads hanging all over this pair of earrings and getting the crystals smelling of toothpaste? Errr...... I'm not too sure about that.

You can see that it's very 'black'. It's nickel plated by the way.

And I start rubbing away.........

Hhhhhmmm.....seems to work pretty decently.

Check out the piece of kitchen towel. You can see some black residue on it after rubbing.

I did not run it under the tap water since I only tried out with only a small part. So I just dampen the other end of the same piece of the kitchen towel and wipe it clean.

And now, the before-after!

Well, obviously, the one at the back is the one we just cleaned and the one at the front was the uncleaned one. Hhhmmm... looks like it does seems to work, huh? But I can't help from thinking if Crest will do an even better job!

Either way, this still comes across as too much of a hassle for me. Heheh! Especially when you have.....

 this!






Toothpaste, kitchen towel, water all sounds too much of a hassle to me when I can just easily pick this up and rub away! Heheh! :P

I know it's meant to clean silver but if it's good enough for silver, I believe it's good enough for everything else!

But then of course, if you haven't got a silver polishing cloth, this could just be the trick! ;)

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Another Cross

This is the commissioned piece that I mentioned before.


Side view.


I was approached recently by a customer who wishes a creation of a cross pendant similar to in effect to the one in this picture. It was supposed to be a birthday gift for her friend which falls on today.





What I could observed from the picture was that the cross pendant was arranged in such a way that you have four flower motifs surrounding a round focal crystal at the centre with an extra focal bead at the bottom motif indicating the longer leg of the cross to make it look like a T.

And this is what I came up with. Of course, I couldn't create one which is exactly the same but what I did was to catch the underlying theme and to create based on that theme.



After adding a bail and chain.


I used Swarovski crystal rondelles #5040 for the bud and #5000 for the petals of the flower motif. The design was also partly inspired by this tutorial in Jewelrylessons.com.

Happy Birthday, friend and hope you like it! :)

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Country Love Ceramics Open Day Pt. III (Final)

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Work Room chat:
For those of you who does or are interested in polymer clay, you might wanna check out this site with heaps of tutorials on not just the clay itself but also the different clay effects. The turials made it look so simple...... o_O
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The last instalment to the CLC Open Day post.

So I did glass painting, and then fabric painting. What's next?




A notebook?

Earlier on, we were shown a sample where the cover of the notebook was painted with some kind of paint. Some kind of paint cuz I don't remember what paint Jenny says it was already. :P


It didn't work cuz the paint cracked on the cover.


Hhhmmm, I'm not too sure about the 'didn't work' part cuz I find the cracked paint on the cover looked kinda cool.


Anyway, we won't be doing any painting to our notebook cover. Instead, we'll be doing some paper craft!




These are special kind of papers, called the Decoupatch papers. I couldn't find much info in English about these papers so I'll just be telling you what I heard from Uncle Ghee.

These papers are produced by a French company. The papers comes in an array of colours and designs (I've noticed that they are all actually patterned papers) and are very thin, something like those tracing papers back home. Even thinner, I dare say! But the difference is, these papers have got a more luxury feel to it and I also find them quite strong.

They are thin enough for you to tear but yet don't tear easily. Erm, get what I mean? A little contradictory there, I know but in other words these are good quality wafer thin papers. There, that should sums it up! :P

In fact, I also find that you could easily hand tear them in a straight line.





There's one catch though. You can't just use any glue. You'll have to use their special glue for the paper to end up with a nice glossy finish.




The paper can be used on any type of surface. We did ours on thick cupboard on the cover of the notebook. Uncle Ghee tried it on pottery before. I've seen them in his studio in the city. I'll take a pic of it and show it next time.

It appears that the company who produces those papers even coat 32 layers of them on the surface of their company's car to be driven around France. Some sort of publicity, I reckon.

Anyway, there's no doubt that those are really nice papers indeed!

So here's what you do. You brush the surface with the deco glue. Paste the paper on and then brush another layer of glue on top of the paper. The glue is white but dries clear. So, no worries there.




I was told that I could just take one big piece of paper and glue it straight away to the surface. But then, what fun is there? :P

I've decided to do it collage style instead! LOL........




So, I just simply tear and paste and came up with this!


No masterpiece there, but it was fun! :P


I quite like the one done by the uncle sitting next to me though.


Nice colour combi there!



And this is Uncle Ghee's.


The green-ish part felt a 'lil Christmas-sy, don't you think?




These should look very familiar to some of you. ;)




Polymer clay is something I've always heard and wondered about but only come in contact with for the very first time.

I know many beaders have been playing around with polymer clay for a while now since it is fun and very convenient to get involved with since these clay only requires to be oven bake.

Frankly speaking, I don't know much about polymer clay other than the two brands of Fimo and Sculpey.

Anyway, that was the first time that I actually touched and felt what polymer clay is like although I've tried those Korean air dried clay, I-Clay by Amos before. I didn't use them for jewellery making though. Just some figure sculpting for fun.





We were supposed to make a cupcake with the given clay.


And that's Andy. He's the expert for the day. He was the one going on rounds demonstrating how those stuffs are used. I think he's also conducting a workshop on polymer clay at CLC some time in August.



And so, I made the cupcake base with the brown clay.


I think it looked more like a mushroom than a cupcake! LOL.....


And then, some icing decoration on top.....


That's one ugly cupcake for you. -__-


But, but.............. I was relieved that mine was not the most un-cupcake looking, to say the least. :P You should look at Uncle Ghee's.

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What the.......??? All you need to do is to draw a pair of eyes, a nose and a mouth and there you have it! A man with pink turban on his head! LOL..... :P


Even the uncle who sat next to me made a nicer cupcake than mine lor. -_-




Emmmmmm, at the moment, I feel that polymer clay is not my thing. I'm not sure if it's due to the lack of time (cuz the polymer clay session was the last one for the day and everyone was packing to leave already) or what, but I sure did not manage the clay well and neither have I got the urge to explore further. Oh, well..... maybe in time to come when I've learned how to make more yummilicious looking cupcakes! :P

Anyway, the cupcake was not oven bake. So I wouldn't know how it will turn out but it's not like it will miraculously turn into this gorgeous looking yummilicious cupcake anyway. :P

You really gotta give it to those polymer clay artist la!

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Country Love Ceramics Open Day Pt.II

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Work Room chat:
Have you heard? There's now an annual fee of USD10.00 for membership at Handmade Jewelry Club cuz it seems like the total membership has exceeded the amount allowed by the Blogger platform. Existing members could still retain their free membership bu posting at least 2 articles a month. I've decided to retain my free membership and therefore I guess you will also be seeing me a lot over there! ;)
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Back to CLC Open Day......


This was what I found amongst the stuffs left on the table for us after lunch, just as I was hoping..... =D




Apart from the rhinestone stuffs you see above, there were also loads of other stuffs on the table which we can use to decorate whatever it is we will be doing for the rest of the day.













Unfortunately, I didn't make use of all of it because well, it just didn't cross my mind. You know how it is when you're not too familiar with the use of something, it basically just doesn't cross your mind as much to make use of it.

Also, it was all done in a short span of time that you don't really have the time to brainstorm for ideas and come up with the best possible effect. It was just enough time for you to try them out.

Well, that's just what I think anyway.

So, okay... the glass effect gel. No surprise here. You just uncapped it and it looks like a pen. So, sorry, forgotten to take a pic of it uncapped but yeah, you just press the tube for the gel to come out at the tip and start decorating on glass.
The come in a few colours too.

The thing I don't quite like about the pen is the tip. It's kinda difficult to control the exact amount that you are squirting out, so you get this uneven blop. Just look at the flowers on my glass...... -__-



I reckon one probably need more practise to master the use of it?

Hhhmmmmm, or maybe I should have done like what Uncle Ghee did. Random swirls and dots and lines. That way, at least the disparity is not so obvious and even if they are, they seems to work out well as part of the design, doesn't it?


Not to mention that Uncle Ghee finishes decorating his very fast too, in under 5 minutes!



Actually, I quite like the transparent ones best because even though they go on as opque white when wet, they dry up very nicely in a glass-like transparency which feels more like glass.




Mine took a bit longer and ended up something like this.....

Honestly, I think they are so hideous that I felt like throwing them out of the window lor. Oh, well...... -__-


When I showed Juju this when I got back home that day, she was kinda excited about the pen. Juju does a bit of stained glass back in Malaysia as a hobby. But stained glass require firing which she couldn't do since she hasn't got a kiln. So, what she has been doing all the while is not touching the glass after she has worked on them. Something like can see only but cannot touch, which I thought is a real shame. That is why when she heard of this pen, she was quite excited about it.

Next up, they swap those glass effect gel pens on our table with this .....




and this




And we were also given a canvas material pencil case.





Basically, what we will be doing is to paint on fabric without the use of fabric paint. But how are we going to make acrylic paint stays on fabric?

The all important point lies within this bottle.





What you do is to add 2 parts of the acrylic paint to 1 part of the fabric medium. This is the cheaper alternative to getting fabric paint, which I heard is much costly.





The first thing that came to my mind was this flashback of a cosmetic case that I must have saw somewhere a while back. I think it's Clinique's if I'm not mistaken. There was this big brush painted pink flower on the cosmetic case, which inspired me to paint mine like this.





But then, it looks too plain just like that and so I added some grass and sky. :P

This is what I finally ended up with.





After painted this, for some strange reasons, I had an urge to do some paintings but of course, I have yet to get about doing it! LOL......

Now, all lined up to dry by the window sill.....


The sun was strong and it was hot just like home that day! Forget to mention also that Uncle Ghee's van has no air-conditioner. -_-




Can you guess which one is done by Uncle Ghee?




Holy moly! I just realize from thia pic that many others also did in a similar design as mine! O_O


I kinda like the one on the back row who did a stained glass like effect ,cuz you see, most people could only think of dots when it comes to those pen. ;)

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