Do WHAT with smelly eggs!? PART III.

I tried the copper! AND! Well, I made quite the discovery last night. Here is the Zebra Copper Wire I used.

1. I made the earrings out of copper, but I added sterling ear wires to make sure my ears did not tint green at all.

2. I put the earrings in the bag with the boiled egg.

3. The sterling turned a dark brown, and NOTHING happened to the copper!! Yeah, the earrings look pretty goofy.

Turns out, like it says on the website, that Zebra Wire is:

"Solid copper wire... coated with natural-colored enamel and finished with a glossy lacquer."

The lacquer is added to prevent tarnish! It would ALSO prevent the copper from tinting your ears GREEN! Now I have NO fear of using copper ear wires, and... I need to find myself some UNCOATED copper wire to test for antiquing. My mother gave me some copper wire for electrical work... I'll play with that next!

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Do WHAT with smelly eggs!? PART II.

Well now I have it all figured out!!  It takes about 10-15 minutes to boil an egg (depending on whether you put the egg in the water before or after it starts boiling).  I've also discovered that if you do TWO eggs at once, the patina takes less time to apply.  Here's what some of my latest creations look like:

I think they turned out neat!  There are flecks of blue, purple and red in each.  This doesn't happen until the Patina gets very dark, however.  If you want to lighten the patina (you don't have a lot of control over darkening speed in this scenario), then you could use a Moonshine cloth to do so - available online in many locations.

My next feat?  Adding a patina on COPPER jewelry.  If you try this method on either sterling silver or copper, let me know how it goes!

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Do WHAT with smelly eggs!?

I just couldn't believe this when I found out.  When sterling silver is tarnished on purpose, it has an "antique look" or "patina".  There are different ways to GET this look, the most common it seems is Liver of Sulfur.  This is something I'd LOVE to get in the near future!  In the mean time, I found out a very interesting way to obtain a "patina" without the chemical and for little $$ - use a hard boiled egg.  Yeah!  The sulfur in the egg will antique the metal for you!  Sounds crazy... but here's what you're supposed to do:

1.  Boil an egg completely.
2.  Place your items to be antiqued in a plastic ziplock baggie.
3.  Arrange them so they are not touching each other.
4.  Insert the egg in the bag and zip it up.
5.  Crush the egg and watch the steam fill the bag!
6.  Wait... and wait... until the desired level of "darkness" is reached.

Okay, simple enough!  Well, I tried it, and it didn't go so well the first time.  PERHAPS it was due to the fact that, Mom, I never learned to BOIL an egg.  Or I just don't have patience?  All I can say is "over-easy."  I'm going to try again in the near future though.  If you've tried it and had success, let me know!  Maybe also give some tips to us first-timers?  Thanks!

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