How to Make a Glass Tile Pendant

I have been making glass tile pendants for years.  Above are a few of them.  But I have only made one for myself!  My friend Leah made a cross stitch that I really liked, and I decided that I was going to shamelessly copy her idea, except in glass tile pendant form.  I hope you don't mind Leah!!!!

First I had to find a picture of the lips.  Then download the font. Go here if you want the font.  I had no idea that there even was a font available!  I laid it out several different ways.  I couldn't decide how I wanted the words.  Then I printed out my pictures and gathered my supplies.

I settled on a design and carefully cut it out to fit on my glass tile. Then glued it to the tile using my triple thick glaze.

 I set it on a piece of wax paper to dry.  You can see the glue that seeped out around the edges in this picture, but that stayed behind on the wax paper when I peeled my tile off.  I let this dry for about a day.

Then I took one of the paint chips I had and chose the red colour that best matched the front and cut it out to fit the tile.

Perfect.  I glued that to the back with an ordinary glue stick.  No waiting for it to dry that way!

 Then I put a nice thick coat of the glaze on the back.  I haven't learned the art of getting the glaze nice and even, I've always got brush strokes.  *sigh*

Then after letting that dry.  I glued my pretty little heart-shaped bail onto the back using E-6000, let that dry and put a chain through it.  Sadly, I managed to do a great job smearing glue all over the place.  Luckily it is the back, so we are the only people who will see it.  If it was a gift, it wouldn't do.  But I  can live with it.

Ta-da!!!!!! 

Thanks for reading!  :)

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How I Cleaned My Silver Jewelry

This isn't a craft, but I think it is pretty crafty. See what I did there?  And totally worth sharing.
I know this is nothing new, but it is new to me. 
My silver chain and adorable Lily of the Valley earrings looked like this.

Before

I know, horrible, right?

After looking online for instructions and reading many similar sets of instructions (No two alike, either.  That is why I am not linking to any one in particular)  I took a deep breath and jumped in.  Trying it my way.

I started with a glass dish. I placed it in the sink just in case I spilled the water. 

I lined it with tinfoil.

Then I poured about an inch of boiling water in.  Without spilling anything!  You only need enough to cover the objects you are cleaning.

Then I sprinkled a bunch of baking soda in the dish.

I clean my sink with baking soda, so yes, that actually is  my container.  It lives under the sink.  There is another one by the bathroom too. I have a different container in the cupboard for my baking needs.


Then I added some salt.  Roughly the same amount as the baking soda.  But, having said that, I didn't measure any of it, I just eyeballed everything.

Then I placed my icky silver on the foil and set a timer for five minutes.  I forget where I read that, but I read somewhere that you should leave the silver in for "up to" five minutes.

Would you look at that!!!!  It looks so much better!  But still not great.  I got a fresh piece of foil and repeated the process on my chain.  The earrings came clean the first try.

After I took them out of the solution, I rinsed them off and buffed them up with a soft cloth.
Lily of the Valley is my favourite flower.  When I saw these earrings at a craft shop I had  to have them, luckily for me, Hubby agreed!  I am so happy that they came clean.

Awe. Some.

And my chain after the second go looks fantastic as well.  I made the "A" for Angela (me!!), but it could stand for Awesome, or Amazing after the way that the silver cleaned up.

After

As for the foil.  There was a bit of a funky smell when I dumped the water out.  And just look at the ring of yuck  that was left behind!!  This was after the chain was done a second time.  

There you have it.  If you have ever wondered if you really can  clean silver this way, now you know!

Thanks for looking!

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