Belt buckles

I have been wanting to make belt buckles for quite a few years now. I even went as far as to take a casting class many years ago where I carved a belt buckle in wax but then never sent it out to be cast. Since then I haven't had the time or the creative spark needed to design and create the buckles so needless to say the buckles had to wait....until today!

I also had purchased all the materials I needed for photo etching metal back when I started curating the last Etsy Metal Charm Swap thinking I would try it out something new and etch all my charms for the swap....well, that idea went out the window when I realized how long it was going to take me to etch 22 charms so I ended up making something totally different and never really got back to teaching myself the etching process...until today!

So today I had some free time and I decided to spend it playing around in my studio. I pulled out all my etching supplies and all the metal I had purchased for when I would one day make my belt buckles and started experimenting. The creative sparks were flying! Here are 3 of the 3 1/2 buckles (one is not finished yet) that I made today. I think they came out pretty well and am pretty proud of them! All three of these buckles will be for sale in my Etsy shop in the very near future so keep an eye out for them and a few more that will be on the way!

smaller etched copper and brass buckle

large etched copper and brass buckle

large etched nickel silver buckle (who knew you could etch nickel silver too!)