Well, the big day is finally here! For once, I finished a project ahead of time!! When I finally received the focal in the mail, (ok, it wasn’t an incredibly LONG wait, it just felt like it was, because I was SO excited to have been included in this!!) I was in in love with the packaging:
 

Yes, I actually took pictures as I unwrapped it! When the focal was revealed, I was in awe of the beautiful colors and depth of detail this simple, yet gorgeous piece of metal held:

I’m sorry about the lack of quality in these pictures-for some reason, I didn’t use my normal camera, and these are on a tired cell phone!This focal sat in my “new stuff” bowl on my desk staring at me for days……  I contemplated many different projects-bracelet? Necklace with this as the focal, wire wrapped and adorned with wire and beads? But the center begged to be a toggle, it seemed to me, and yet, it demanded to be the focus of whatever I came up with. I toyed with strung beads, handmade chain, leather, but it just didn’t seem quite right. Finally, as I was cleaning off my desk, I came across my box of copper washers, aka, links. 😉
I scooped up many, and off to the garage I went. After firing, I had the Muscle drill holes for me I admit, I am intimidated still by the drill press, two on each edge, opposite each other. Next, I torched them again, pickled, and then hammer the daylights out of them until I was happy with their shape and texture. All that hammering gave these pieces some awfully sharp edges, so I decided to tumble them for awhile with a burnishing solution. I used too much-my first time using it-and it made my barrel very unhappy and my stainless steel shot black and sticky! But a little tomato paste cleared it all up.
The pieces looked great. But I wanted to add a little color to them. I thought about LOS, Gun blue, and all the other things I’ve tried in the past, but none of them felt quite right-the color wasn’t quite what this focal needed to compliment it. Then I remembered something I had wanted to try-“painting with fire”! I strung all the little washers and the figure 8’s I made as connectors, and the toggle I made onto a scrap piece of 12g wire, and run my torch over it lightly, just until the color changed. Then I quenched them quickly in water. Perfect. The pieces were then sealed with a clear glossy polyurethane.
Adding beads was a major necessity. I felt they were required to help bring out certain colors in the copper pieces and the focal, and to make it a little more flirty, girly and fun! Pyrite nuggets from a distant bead show, and little red jasper rounds from Magpie Gemstones created sweet little dangle clusters. Two copper charms on either side completed the necklace!

I was trying desperately to capture the great colors that torching the copper brought out, and how they compliment the focal!

Playing with different displays!

I love my new necklace!

So, that’s what I ended up turning that great little focal into! Please check out my partners in creating by clicking through this list of blogs and see what they all have created, too! Thank you for looking, and thank YOU, Kristi Bowman, for including me and sending me this fantastic creation of yours!