How us married folk roll......

I spent most of yesterday (Valentine's Day) in my basement. That's right, my basement. For a few weeks now, I have been half heartedly bugging my husband to help me pull together the supplies I would need to etch copper. When I say half heartedly, it's because I knew I really didn't have the time to do it, but I just wanted the supplies there to know that I could if I wanted to. It seems I've been finding this technique all over lately - in a new book I bought, magazines, on Etsy. While I totally support the artists already doing it - bought pieces from Jennifer Stumpf and from Round Rabbit - I wanted to try it myself since I have a vast array of stamps already from scrapbooking. One in particular I knew I wanted to incorporate into jewelry for some time that says "in my past life, I was either a gypsy or a peacock". I had made a shrinky dink out of this stamp some time ago, but it just wasn't doing the job.

So yesterday was the day. In the morning, I announced to my husband this is what I wanted for Valentine's Day. Yup, that's right honey - I'd rather have ferric chloride instead of roses. No, it's not a trick. So we set off to a few stores - mostly hardware stores - to get what was needed. The only thing we didn't find was a blackening patina - more on that later....

Here we will descend down the stairs for a tour of my almost 100 year old basement, where some parts are downright creepy... The work area is always a mess. One thing about me - I hate prepping for projects and I hate cleaning up after them. I just like to make whatever I am doing. This is not such a good practice thought because when I go to start the next project, I have to cleanup after the last one which makes the prep even more time consuming. I don't know why I do this.

Behind the door in the previous picture is where it gets creepy. This is where you can see the actual stone foundation and it also leads to another little creepy room where....uhhh.....they kept coal or something before the house was run on a furnace (I think). My crazy imagination runs wild on me and I hate when Jon is gone overnight because the house makes a lot of noises and all I can think of is that little room looks like it came out of one of the Saw movies. Sooooo, this is really romantic so far, right? Really though, it was great and Jon assisted with drilling holes in the completed pieces and I even talked him into hammering some old spoons (my Grandma's) flat for me to make bracelets. Unfortunately though, the metal stamp set I was going to use to stamp phrases into these is worthless. It's for scrapbooking purposes and I'm not sure what it would make an impression in except tin foil! He has some letter sets from a race shop he works out of that he said we can borrow. So, spoons must wait...... Here's a pic of the plaques I made for the dog's collars. I found the most perfect charms at Ornamentea.And here's the 2 plates I made to rock some cuff bracelets I made from the aforementioned stamp. They've already taken on a patina of their own, but I still think they need the blackening patina. So after some trial and error, here are some questions I have that perhaps a more experienced etcher can answer:

1. What kind of patina do you use and where do you get it. Is there an easy alternative to find out there?

2. How many pieces can you etch out of one tray of solution before it becomes too weak?

3. How long do you usually leave your pieces in to etch?

4. It sounds like you can use this same solution to etch nickel or brass?

I would be most appreciative of any tips!