Leather Bead Caps- Some Math Involved

Ive been in desperate need of bead caps lately, but I don't like my jewelry to have the same look as everyone else who bought their supplies at the local bead shop. So I often buy vintage and antique pieces. When I cna't find any that will do I make my own.
My DH has a pile of leather scraps from an abandoned hobby. I remember seeing a demo on making leather flowers on Youtube. When you burn the edges of your leather flowers the petals curl and cup.
I thought this method of shaping leather might make a promising alternative bead cap as well.

Here are instructions based upon how I created them.
To begin with draw three 25mm circles on some leather from 4-5 oz leather. These will be your test pieces to determine shrinking.

On your leather draw a line left to right in front of you then left to right on your circles. This will show you which way your leather is facing after burning so you can determine shrinking percentage correctly. Your leather will not cup and shrink evenly. You can skip calculating and testing if you feel lucky, but in my experience (and experimentation) most leathers will not shrink evenly. The larger a piece you torch the less noticeable distortion is.

You will want to torch your leather outside or under a vent hood because it can get smokey and smelly as it burns. Now lay your leather circle on a piece of fire brick or unglazed bisque tile, with the lines you drew on it facing down on the tile/brick. Un-lined side facing up.
Carefully torch the edges in a circular motion until they begin to curl up and your circle becomes an oval cup shaped cup. I'm using a small propane jewelers torch in the video below.

Clean your test pieces in warm soapy water and 'work; them by bending them inside out the right side in over and over until they soften up. Reshape them and let them dry completely. Then measure them in millimeters so you can calculate how much they shrank.

Now determine how much your leather shrinks on each side.
 Here is a formula you can use:
(new width/original test circle size) = new size in percent
(new length/original test circle size) = new size in percent

percent reduction in width- 100% = percent shrinkage of width
percent reduction in length- 100% = percent shrinkage of length

How I applied it:
20/25= 0.8 or 80%;  80-100 = 20% shrinkage of width
15/25= 0.15 or 60%; 60-100 = 40% shrinkage of width

Take the average of the three test pieces and use this as your percent for the rest of your calculation purposes.

So now I determine oval sizes that will shrink and curl to approximately a circle when I torch them.
15mm circles = (15 x 20%)+15 width x (15 x 40%)+15 length oval
or   15mm circles = (15 x 0.2)+15 W x (15 x 0.4)+15 L
this gives me a 18mm wide x 21mm long oval that will become (roughly) a 15mm circle once the edges are torched and curled.

After determining several sizes I went into Photoshop and began making oval templates.
I made the following templates:
15mm circle = 18mm x 21mm oval
20mm = 24mm x 28mm
25mm = 30mm x 35mm
30mm = 36mm x 42mm
35mm = 42mm x 49mm
40mm = 48mm x 56mm

Here's my template. 'Grain Direction' is actually the direction with the most shrinking.

Now use your templates to trace and cut new ovals.
Once your ovals are cut find the centers and punch a hole in them with a leather awl.
Torch and clean them just as you did your test pieces.

Shredded T-Shirt links and Demo.....

I found a new recycled clothing craze that I like. Shredded T-Shirts! I saw some while wandering around Etsy looking for new ideas. Urban Revisions has some fab pieces.
This how-to video from childhoodflames is also nice:


As for the vertical lines that they have in some designs, or areas that seem to be blocked off. I think they use Fray Check to keep them from shredding, or they sew the edges of each blocked-off area with a very fine stitch before shredding the shirt.

Be sure to use a really thin tee shirt for this. On my first try I used a thicker weave and it wouldn't shred. Also I don't have long fingernails so I had a difficult time pulling the threads to make the texture. I ended up using a Knifty Knitter Hook to scratch across the fabric as it lay flat on the table. It gently, but slowly pulled the threads apart into a nice cobweb texture.

This project takes FOREVER and is hard on the fingers!! Mine got tired and started locking up after 3 hours of pulling. But the effect is very pretty, and worth the pain. I'm going to store this project by my sofa and work on it when I watch TV.

So far the Fray Check seems to be working for keeping nice lines of un-frayed material between the frayed areas. I'll post more pics as I get further along in this project.

Cinco de Mayo double post; DIY Plastic Jewelry Tags

It has occurred to me that I have not done a DIY post for this week yet; so I'm going to do something simple since the post I originally wanted to do is giving me some heart break.
Not to fear, it will still get posted in the next couple of weeks. I'm having a series of tool malfunctions . . broken Dremel bits, smashed fingers, missing tools. I won't go into details here.
Anyway, here is a simple and useful trick to make jewelry tags for necklaces, bracelets, and brooches using Shrinky Dink.

The secret is to keep your design very simple. Anything complicated gets lost when the tags are shrunk.

I use White Shrinky Dink plastic, you can also use the Shrinky Dink Ink Jet plastic, but since your tags will be very tiny you may as well save a few dollars and simply purchase the white plastic. I don't like to use the clear plastic. it looks a bit flimsy to me, even when shrunk.

In addition to shrink plastic you will need:

• a standard 1/4" hole punch
• a pencil with eraser
• a permanent markers
• a printout of the template provided in these instructions
• a pair of scissors

Shrinky Dinks shrink approximately 1/3 their size. I use a standard hand-held hole punch (6mm hole size) to make the holes for jump rings, so my starting un-shrunk width needs to be at least 10 mm to give a nice sturdy border of 2mm around the hole. I'll make the overall length 30mm to get a nice rectangle.

Here is a template for an oval tag and a round tag. Right click to copy it and then paste it into Microsoft Word so you can print it Then transfer it to your shrink plastic by tracing. Or print this page at normal size to get the correct dimensions.

Here are templates for the Ink Jet Shrinky Dink paper. They contain 166 tags each. Their Original size is 72 pixles/inch on an 8"x10" canvass. I intentionally made the borders very light so it's won't show up much upon printing and shrinking. This way you can go over it and add your own color border or graphics.

Trace lightly. You will be erasing the pencil marks before shrinking. To trace a template tape the template over the glass of a sunny window. Then stack your shrink plastic over it. Trace the lines you see through the plastic with your pencil.

Once you have your template traced (or printed, follow the instructions that comes with your Shrinky DInk Ink Jet paper) begin decorating or signing your name on each tag. Sharpie brand Fine Point Permanent Markers work best and won't smudge even after shrinking. They also come in a variety of colors. I simply sign and date a tag once I have completed a piece of jewelry. Then shrink the tag in my toaster oven and attach it to the piece with jump rings.

Before shrinking be sure all tags are cut out and holes are punched. Punch the holes with a standard 1/4", light duty, hand held hole punch. Pardon my sloppy rounded edges. I started with the square template but decided I wanted round after they were cut out.

Erase the pencil marks once the tags are cut out. Now follow the instructions for shrinking your plastic. Assuming you used White Shrinky Dink brand shrink plastic, follow the Shrinky Dink Shrinking Baking Instructions

Your finished product will look something like this:

Finally! Jewlery photos!

Mosaic of Jewelry Vases in the floor of my mother's SUV.

Pile of jewelry dumped on the kitchen table for sorting (and there are still more jars to be emptied!). Second pic is a close up of an unsorted pile.

Sharon won second place for the tackiest piece of jewelry found.

Awesome Mexican Silver finds!!!

What time is it?
We had been sorting for 3 hours by now!

Dad (one of the few Republicans in the family) shows his party spirit by modeling the Republican Earrings Mom found in her jar. She won tackiest find for these beauties!

Goodwill Midnight Madness and Junk Jewlery Extravaganza! Part 2

We finally went to bed around 3am and dreamed of our junk finds.

The next day we attended a bead show at Dallas Market Hall. I spent way too much on bead caps. (I checked the price after purchase and found an Etsy dealer that had the same thing for half the price!) Mother fell in love with a sterling necklace with little painted shell Russian ladies on it; Sharon fell in love with a bias-cut amber necklace; and I found a lady from Russia that did fabulous bead weaving.

The last booth we visited was a jeweler that bought scrap gold from the public. A nice Pakistani gentleman greeted us and quickly began sorting, examining, and weighing Sharon's gold and silver. He tested it with magnets and looked at markings under his magnifying glass. As he was finishing (after about 15 minutes of examining weighing and calculating) we told him where she had acquired it. He couldn't believe his ears and complimented Sharon twice saying "You are a very smart woman." Once the evaluation and exchange was done Sharon netted $250 dollars from her horde!

I'll post pictures later tonight ASAP.