Some of you have been asking Ellen for more soldering posts--you know who you are! For today's post, I pulled out my Graphic 45 Christmas Past tags sheet and chose three images that would work with the Memory Glass sizes that I had on hand, 1-1/2" square, and 2" square. I also had some pretty chandelier crystals that I thought I would try to work in. I will use these as tree ornaments, even though I photographed them with chains. (Trust me, the chains looked better than my ornament hangers!)
First, I trimmed my tags down to fit within the glass sandwich, making the paper ever so slightly smaller than the glass. You do not want paper sticking out to prevent your copper foil tape from sealing well against your glass.
Next I wrapped copper foil tape evenly around the edges of all three pieces. I chose the ripple edged copper foil tape from the variety pack to add a bit more interest, burnishing it well to be sure that the tape would stay put when it got hot.
Here you can see my initial rough soldering job. If you click and enlarge it, you will probably see some places where I need more solder. By the way, that is a quarry tile that I am using to protect my counter top from stray pieces of molten metal. I'm going to get one of these heat proof mats one day though!
Here I have added some accessories at the tops and bottoms of the ornaments, including jump rings and Victorian Filigree. If you enlarge it, you will also see that I have some discoloration on the tops of the center and left pieces where I got the decorative piece a bit too hot. I went back and re-tinned them (brushed them with flux and added a thin layer of solder).
Here I've added some lovelies on the bottoms of each piece--ranging from the chandelier crystals, to some miscellaneous beads that I had in a box, to a Maya Road pin that I cut off and attached with a jump ring. This was a fun project; my nine year old was impressed; "Can we keep them, Mom?" he asked. Thank you for visiting the CLASSroom today!
