Charm Swap Four

EtsyMetal's fourth charm swap is underway, with 20 members each creating 22 charms for the swap - one for each participant, one for the bracelet and one to be sold singly in the shop. It's exciting to participate in the swap, but also nerve-racking to come up with a design. I was limited by funds this time and couldn't do them in silver. I love the warmth of copper and have used that. I'll post some process photos showing the production of the charms.

The copper is cut into rectangles, and the silver tubing into tiny lengths and the tube rivets are placed.

These are the punches I will use to stamp the dandelion design. After stamping, the metal is all curved and needed to be pounded flat with a mallet.

Here they are before I've added the oxidation to blacken the design and after. The jump rings are left unsoldered so they can be added to a charm bracelet. I also added a tiny seed pearl wire-wrapped in fine silver - a tiny escaped seed of the dandelion.