Wednesday 25 November 2015

Cabochon jewelry

Pretty simple once you've gathered all the ingredients, like frame, glass, glue, and pictures. The glass covers come in flat and convex. If you're using convex covers, only choose landscapes, flowers or anything neutral as your motif. Portraits only go well (i.e. undistorted) with flat glass, and you don't want your fiancé at twice his breadth on your necklace ;)

The trickiest thing is to avoid bubbles of air when you glue the images to the glass. I find it easiest to put a generous dollop of glue on the flat side of the cabochon, press the picture onto the glue and wiggle it very gently until it has spread the glue all over the glass and lies down flat. Dry on a flat surface (some hours will be enough, I just leave mine overnight), cut away the excess paper and glue to the metal frame.


The simplest way of wearing them would be to attach them to a piece of satin ribbon or a slender metal chain, or you can attach them to any pearl or bead necklace, lace ruff (expecially for rococo), or whatever you fancy.
 

 For a rose quartz version I also added a matching pendant, the beads are rose quartz and crystal.

A very nice thing is a two-faced version. Take two pieces of the same foundation style and very diligently glue them back to back with some jewellery glue so they're absolutely apposite. For the front picture, proceed as above, with a rounded cabochon and a nice picture. For the reverse side that is to remain hidden when worn, use a flat cabochon so the pendant won't turn but remain nice and tidy with the flat side down and the convex side up and you can keep your secret lover's picture nicely hidden ;) If you're in a hurry and there are no flat cabochons at hand, it also works well with a piece of clear plastic cut into shape to cover the picture.

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