Thrift Store Find Becomes Earrings

One of my recent thrift store searches resulted in me finding a couple of interesting brass dishes. 

Each dish was around the size of a small bread dish and hand textured with a lovely variety of shapes and patterns.

Each dish was also very dirty, but I'm not easily frightened by a bit of dirt or grime that I know I can either scrub off with my brass brush or blast off with my torch.

When I saw that they were 50 cents each, I knew that each dish was coming home with me.

 

I cut the rolled rim off the one dish, making further cuttings a little easier to deal with.

I then annealed the dish and flattened it on a steel block so that I would be able to use the metal guillotine for additional cuttings. 

 

The other dish was cut into sections...

annealed and hammered flat....

 

and cut into wedge shaped segments.

Each wedge was filed and sanded on all sides and then cleaned in the pickle pot.

 

I then measured and cut strips of copper...

and filed and sanded all edges and surfaces.

 

The brass wedges were soldered onto the brass strips...

and cleaned in the pickle pot.

 

I then drilled a hole into the top of each piece....

formed curves with my rawhide mallet and bracelet mandrel, and polished them in my tumbler.

 

Each brass wedge is different, so I made the best complementary pairings that  I could....

and added sterling earwires.

 

And there you go...lovely earrings from a couple of 50 cent thrift store dishes.