Charm Swap 8 (CS8) - week 5

This week we have a progress report from Erin Austin of Erin Austin Design. Yesterday Erin sent these photos of her charms in progress and says " Today I worked on cutting copper strips and fold forming. I love fold forming. It's always so loose." There are many different kinds of folding techniques and although this is not the same fold Erin used, you can watch a video on one of the fold forming techniques here. I can't wait to see what Erin does with them next!

I have actually had time this week to experiment a little bit with photo etching and am happy with the results. I have wanted to make a piece of jewelry that was in the form of a sugar skull for quite a while. But due to all of the detail on these skulls I have put it off because it would be a very time consuming to cut each piece from metal and solder all the pieces together. Since I haven't photo etched in years and have wanted to try it again I thought the sugar skull would be perfect for etching! And not to mention the charms will be shipped just in time for Dia de los Muertos (Mexican Holiday of Day of the Dead). Here is my sketch for the piece.

 Check back next week for more updates! ~Michele Grady