Beads and Leather

Well, even with a disasterous shoulder and god-aweful concussion, I managed to get a bunch of work done on the mushroom veil. I sprewed the new mushrooms, but I won't bother with a picture of that. However, I re-processed the beads and embossed the leather.

The beads that make up the veil are red and black. The red beads, since they were commercial, were very bright and sparkly. So I processed them into new beads.


This is a before and after shot of the beads. The beads on the left are after, the right are before.


The beads next to the crown.



Here's how I made such a dramatic change to the beads. I'm puting it out there since I couldn't really find a description like this when I wanted to do it.

Step 1: The interior of the beads (where the chord or wire goes through) was covered in a metallic foil. This made the beads far too shiney and sparkly for my uses. So I heated up a small amount of pickle, and soked the beads for about an hour. I though that this would effect the surface of the beads (I was hoping for it), but it did not. However, it did remove the metal foil.

Step 2: Rinse about a dozen times to remove the foil from the water.

Step 3: I repeated steps 1 and 2 to ensure it was all clean.

Step 4: I used Armor Etch, which contains ammonium and sodium biflourides, to etch the surface of the glass beads. However, I knew that these two chemicals were water soluable, so I deluded the bath so that the beads would soak longer, making it easier to control. This made the surface of the beads far less glossy, and a little foggy and textured. The texture helped with the next step.

Step 5: I put the beads in a liquid-tight plastic jar. I used plastic instead of glass because the beads are also glass, and I wanted to minimalize the damage to the beads. I then, in a seperate container, oured a little bit of black acrylic paint. I then added a copper acrylic interference, which added copper powder to the black giving it a copper and metallic shine. I then let it solidify a little bit, then added it to the beads. I then shook it up in the jar, letting it coat evenly. I shook it for about 15 minutes, which allowed the paint to dry evenly on every surface to limit contact differences.

Step 6: Lay the beads out on a paper towel and put them under a light to heat them up a little.






So that's how I did it.


This is the embossed leather for the strap. It carries on the form of the crown, as well as the pattern.





See you space cowboy....