Etsy Metal Blog Carnival

Etsy Metal is a talented group of metal smiths from all around the world. Every month we hold a blog carnival where we all blog about the same thing and attach links to each others blogs so everyone who reads one can read and find everyone elses too.This month's Etsy Metal Blog Carnival is

Topic: "Nobody's Perfect!"Care to share a piece of your work that did not turn out quite as beautiful as you had planned?
Perhaps you have an interesting experience that went awry...

I have quite a few items I can post about for this but I have picked to blog about my "happy accidents". Boy do I have plenty of things that went awry and have ended up as scrap but these 2 pieces were lucky! They were almost scrapped as well but things worked out for the best in the end.

Happy accident #1

First is a one of a kind ring that I designed. Yes, I said "ring". After all I am such a ring person! I had a great idea to make a large ring from the green conichalite stone in the photo below. But by the time I had finished building the cage around the stone it measured approx 2 1/2" long and 1" wide. A bit too large for a ring even for me and I LOVE big rings! Needless to say it has become quite a fabulous pendant instead and is for sale in my Etsy Shop!

Happy accident #2
The other piece that didn't turn out quite as planned was this heart pendant below. I was going to make a "puffed" sterling silver heart that was hollow inside. I haven't reticulated sterling silver in a while so I thought I would give it a try again and give the silver some texture and it came out great! I then put the silver in the hydraulic press to give it its heart shape but when I took it out the sterling had a tiny little crack in it. It added some interest and was still usable so I attempted to solder the to halves of the heart together. That's when things went wrong. The little crack had turned into a big hole when the sterling started to melt while soldering it! I hate to waste anything so instead of scrapping the piece and starting over I came up with the idea to add a piece of copper under the sterling to make the piece stronger and so it showed thru the hole to give the piece more depth. The piece actually came out better than I had planned and I ended up keeping this one of a kind necklace for myself! I wear it all the time. Happy accidents are the best!

To read about what some of the other Etsy Metal members have blogged on this topic:

1. Silentgoddess - http://silentgoddess.blogspot.com

2. Gracebourne - http://gracebourne.blogspot.com/

3. The Silver Pearl - http://silverpearlmetalworks.wordpress.com/

4. 2Roses - http://jewelrytutorial.blogspot.com

5. Inbar Bareket - http://www.inbarbareket.info/blog

6. Anne Walker - http://creativeinclinations.blogspot.com/

7. Beth Cyr - http://bcyrjewelry.blogspot.com

8. wildflowerdesigns - http://wildflowerdesigns.blogspot.com

9.  TK Metal Arts - http://tkmetalarts.blogspot.com

10. Evelyn Markasky - http://markasky.blogspot.com/