Transcripts
1. Intro Birch Tree Pendants: Hi, everyone Killing. Hear from Kelly chassis by heart. I have a full time artist and online instructor, and I have been making these beautiful main birch tree dependence out for about a year on. They're selling like crazy. I tell him at the Portland International Jetport, where I wanted to feed your artist there. I love them so we'll show you how to do a lighthouse. All should show you. How do you want? Just a very simple one to start with a little hard in there, we'll cut out the birch bark. If you don't have birch bark, you can order some actually on, and I'll give you all of my information of where I order all of my supplies and I'll show you three separate projects on how to create these beautiful one of a kind original art pieces. I look forward to see you in the press
2. About birch tree jewelry : everyone Kelly hear from Kelly chassis, Fine art and welcome to our birch tree jewelry course will be creating these wonderful jewelry pieces using birch bark. Now, I want to give you just a couple different options that we will learn in this course we'll be using. The whole punch of this makes it really easy to cut out the birch bark, and we'll be using a brand called Art resin for this. Now you can use other resins. Just make sure that you double check to see how yours works. So art resident does have a long drying time or work time. It's about 40 45 minutes now. That doesn't mean that it hardens in 45 minutes. That just means that the curing process begins after 45 minutes, so you will notice it gets a little thicker for you. And this will take about 24 hours to fully cure so that you can actually touch it. You want to make sure that you have equal parts of resin and equal parts hardener. Now for your project. Depending on how maney jewelry pieces that you want to create, you may or may not need a lot of resin, and I am using about a couple ounces here, but I'm creating about 20 different pieces, so keep that in mind while you're working cause a little bit goes a long way now with art resin. As I said, you have equal parts of the resin and the hardener, and then I would just stir this very slowly so that we do not get a lot of bubbles in our resin. You'll just need a Popsicle stick and a cup, and I do love these little plastic containers. It just makes it really easy when you're measuring out your art resin and you have equal parts in there. So once you drop those down, you can make sure that you still are equal with your amounts. Otherwise, you can use separate cups to pour your hardener in and your resident separately and then use a clear cup container to mix them both together so I can tell here by my bottle that my resin has a little bit more left in it. So I'm just gonna add a little bit more of the resident, and I have labeled these with H. R. Just makes it easy, so that I know which is in which, because they basically look the same. So it's always a good thing to do. I make sure you use a permanent Sharpie because if you're using alcohol to clean up, which works very well when working with resin, By the way, even little jars of an sanitizers with a little bit of salt, sea salt and rubbing that on you should be using gloves, they should say. But if you do happen to get some on there, that's a great way to help Take it off me here. As I am stirring my resident or mixing it, I am moving my Popsicle stick very, very, very slowly, and this will help are not create as many air bubbles in your resume so makes up for three minutes, and then we will be on to our next steps.
3. Birch Bark : right. So the first thing that you will need for these projects is Cem Riel Birch tree bark. Now, if you do not have this available in your area, you can't actually order this from Amazon. I have find walking in the Maine woods. We have plenty of birch trees that have fallen and we also earn would sometimes So we have it. We have it available for us. Now. The key is do not take this off of a live tree. It's very important. Make sure that if you get this, you're getting it from on area. That is yes, Something has taken down or used for firewood or something like that because that can actually hurt the trees. If you pull bark off of a live tree, so don't do that. So you will also need, um, a hole puncher and you will need some bez ALS or pendants. Ah, and I will put a link for you guys below. For all of these, I have them listed in my Amazon shop. So now the wood I've had or the birch tree bark have had for a while. It's completely dried out on, and it's very brittle at this point, so it does pop out real easy now. It's pretty thick at this point. It's got the bark on the back as well. So it's 2 to 2 different sides to this, so you can use either side. You also can separate them very carefully if you, you know, if you have vessels that are not real deep. These ones are from Amazon as well, and I'll give you the link for that. But these air pretty, pretty good sized vessels, but you want to make sure that that would is not too thick. So you can. As as I said, you can peel that and separate that you had to be really careful when you do it right. So I have my three pieces cut out for our project and X will be using the resin and will also be doing a little detail in here.
4. Engraving: And of course, you can have just plain birds with which absolutely is gorgeous by itself. But I thought I would give you a few other options here, So I'm a resin set and put that aside. Lay down some wax paper because you do wanna protect your surfaces. And I've got a couple of pendants here. I'm gonna use just the back side of this 1st 1 here. And for this, I am going to use what is called a micro Inc raver pan. And this is done by Beat Smith. And I will also give you a link for this as well. Now, this is just used for engraving. Basically, it's just a little engraver, but I found that it works wonderful in wood and especially since this would is very soft. This works very easy to dig in and just give you a really cute little heart, and this one happens to take. I believe it's to triple A batteries so you don't even have to plug it in. It's a little button on the side here that you just pushing. It vibrates a little bit. Of course, you could get us fancy as you want with this, But I'm just gonna do something real simple for you. And you will be able to see this once we add the resin. On top of it was just a sweet little heart. How cute would this be for Mom? For Mother's Day for Easter holiday birthday to show a little love. So that's it? How simple is that? So now we're gonna go ahead and put this into our vessel, the adding resident to it in our next step.
5. Adding resin: All right, so now we're gonna add our resin to our pendant. Now, the resin has been sitting over here, so most of the air bubbles have escaped. And I'm just going to do a little drop on here just to give it something to stick Teoh. Now, you could always add glue here if you wanted to do glue. But I found the resin works, just Azizi, and we're already in the midst of it. So what minds will just utilize that now? You don't want to put a whole lot of you Don't want to see about too much while you're working on this, but you do want enough so that you can kind of move it around and make sure you have a nice seal on there now, because thes pendants are fairly deeper once you fill us up with the Reds and that's really not gonna go anywhere because it sticks to the edges of these and I have not good would have never had one Fallout e have you making these for a couple of years now? So you're gonna fill it up now? You don't want to over feel it too much when you first start, so just put a little bit in there, and then you can always dome this at the very end, and you just make sure that you don't over fill it too much, that it seeps that over your edges, and then it causes a massive. You have to clean that all up, and you do have to make sure that you get everything around the edges. If you do spill it, don't you'll have, um, it will stick to the bottom and it gets underneath these pendants, and these pendants happen to have a little detail in the back. So if you get the resident there, it's really hard to get it out. So that looked pretty good, I think in a lever, as is now these do you have a little bit of a lip. So I've one ahead and put this on top of a phone board and then dropped the edge off just a little bit. And that way it lays flat because if you have it on a flat surface, it's going to raise up a little bit on one side, and then the resin will tend to run down towards the front. Now you can see here. I'm just using a little more of those little lighters. They don't want something like a big torch because it's just too much. He and too much pressure with blowtorch for these little projects. So if you don't have a little lighter, you could also use a mat to just kind of dragged it across the surface of your resin. And that will pop any air bubbles that are in there. So the next step will be making just a 2nd 1 of these. You can see how it looks with just the white birch bark.
6. Lighthouse pendant: right. So this one, we're gonna just do another quick one here, and I have peeled the bark, the backing of this one. So this is a lot thinner, and I do want to show you how you can easily just do a quick cleanup if you get too much resident here. So I've overfilled that just a little bit. And this piece of bark actually has a little hole in it. So when I push down on this, it squirts right out. I could see where this kind of comes over. The edge you need to do is take a look, alcohol and a little bit of a paper towel. Or, um, I've got an old washcloth here, an old towel. You just gonna wipe that right off the edges? It will clean it pretty well now, As I said before, you really should be wearing gloves. But these air such small pieces and a lot of times the resin doesn't touch you. But I'm still going to tell you that you really should be wearing gloves when you're working with us. I can see that I have enough resident here so that it is moving a little bit just tilting this. Trying to make the resin cover up all of that area here before we actually take the later to it. And you could also take a toothpick and just spread that around. Now this one wants to rise up a little bit. It's a little bit thinner, and I have that hole in the middle, so I'm just pushing it down trying. Teoh, make sure that that is not floating in there. We want a nice flat surface on our our resident. Once this is hardened and you will see that some bubbles have come to the surface because it got trapped underneath there. So you just want to keep your eye out. You may have to go back and take a lighter to it one more time just to make sure that no bubbles have come back up on the surface of these. So we'll take the lighter to it and just barely going above the resin. You don't want to heat the resin up and you don't want to touch the resins. You just wanna have that later. Just glazing the top of that. So we'll say this one is done. And the last little piece I want to show you is a pen and ink one with a lighthouse drawing on it. So this will be coming up next.
7. Lighthouse pen &i nk: All right. So the final piece, we're gonna be creating a lighthouse using that same micro engraver. But we're also gonna be using a little bit of pen in ink, and I'm just gonna be using a Sharpie for this. So I always tested out. Make sure I've got it. Okay, It's gonna fit in there, and I'm using a different color. You notice that each of these pendants are different shade. This one is the gunmetal. Before that, I used the silver and then the antique gold as well. So they have a lot of different options on Amazon for the color choices that you might like . So I I'm just very lightly here sketching in with my graver pen, a little light house. And you have to worry about this too much because you can use your pen and ink to go over it. But this will give you just a little bit of a an idea of where you want things to go. And you'll also see a little bit of that texture when you put the resin on top. So it's ah, it's a fine little technique that I have picked up by playing. I always say that with my classes, you guys need to make sure you play because that's how all these wonderful little ideas come to light. It's just by trial and error, trying new things, trying different things out. So this is, um, supposed to be Portland headlight if you familiar with it. But I added embellishment, too. It's got some trees which are not around the lighthouse, but I wanted to add a little bit more to it so you can see here of just sketching and very lightly a little bit of rocks, getting a little lighthouse shape in here. It always do this with a pencil beforehand. If you'd rather and then go over whether you're engraver, totally up to you. I've done this painting or this lighthouse so many times that I can do it. My eyes closed now, so I know people will say you make it look so easy. It's just because I practiced it so good to get that little sea escape line in there. The Horizon line. You could do a little touch up here if you wanted to. Now, if you find that your bark is causing your pen to stick or comes up a little bit. Just have a little piece of paper on the side, and you can get that going again. Just putting a little scribbles in here and let's go ahead. Mm. It's gonna put a little tree in here I am a pen did to get a little bit of that urge bark on there, so it's stuck. So I just cleaned it off a little bit, and now it's working a lot better here, just putting some trees in here and will create a little rocky island on there. So those trees aren't just floating out there in the water. And that's all there is to that simple, quick and easy, and it looks beautiful when it's done. So once again, I've got my resin putting a little dollop on here for it to stick to. Now you can use if you find it easier, the little pets that you can get, and I'll post a link for you on that as well. But I am a simple living gal, so I try to use the least amount of materials as possible, things that could get away with and obstacle stickwork for mixing. And it's really easy to to use, especially with these little projects like this toe again using my tooth. But just pushing that down now, you do want to be careful that you don't take the toothpick the end of it, and poke holes in your urge. Bark that. Just be careful with that. I tend to lay on the side and just use it that way so well again, A little bit of resident. They're moving around trying not to over feel it. First, let's see how far this goes. Now you will notice if you heat the resin up. It is more liquid, so it will run a lot easier and more fast. So if you can help it, try not to get the resin heated up at first until you're comfortable with how much resin you have on there and heating it up is what's done with a torch that he'd set up. So I try not toe leave it on there too much. Just wanna have it enough so that you get the bubbles out. So I wanna lay that one beside this one and we'll take the lighter to it and you'll see that I hit the other ones once more. Now, this has only been about 10 minutes since these other two were done, so the resin hasn't started to cure, so there's no issues with taking lighter to it. Now, if you wait too long and then you take the later to it and those bubbles air up there and it started to cure, you will see some of those holes will make little difference in your resin. So it's really important to get that done initially before it starts to cure. Cover these with a cup or you could cover it with some type of plastic cover. I just wanna make sure you keep the dust particles out of there while they cure. You want to give that at least 24 hours to make sure that they are fully hardened before you pick them up and start working with them. So next steps will be putting these together and creating some bracelets and some necklaces out of it.
8. Putting on the hardware: All right. So let's go over some of the hardware. What they call findings. Ah. I found this great little kit on Amazon has a little bit of everything in here, and it's a great little starter kit. If you're just starting out with jewelry on its got all the main ingredients that you need of your wire, you have your You're a pliers. You have your rope a measuring tool. You have some, uh, Clearwire. There is a some tweezers, all kinds of all things in here as a fabric measuring tape. Another little Kimber tool to hold onto things with. I've used all of these myself, but, um and that comes with this little case of findings. So there's a little bit of, like I said, a little bit of everything in here. So you got your little jump rings in here, which is what I'm gonna be using today for our, um, adding are our little pendants to our necklaces with so you can see here my little jump ring. I think this is gonna be a three millimeter. Maybe a little bit larger, 20 gauge. And as far as the wires, you know, if you get into making jewelry. It's, you know, can get pretty in depth. But this is just a basic thinner wire, so it's easy to bend. So the higher the gauge, the thinner the wire as it gives you an idea. So I have here also my little expandable bracelet, and I did find thes um, I ordered on Amazon as well, and I like to get the 2.6 unless you have really small wrists. This is actually for a man, believe it or not. But, um, it is expandable and this works. It's easy to get it over your wrist, and I think I think I have maybe a seven inch wrist can't remember, but I don't have a real big wrist and it and it works well. So I also have here in my necklaces and this is the gunmetal. So this one matches and again I'll put all the links for you down below. On where I get this, I get a lot of mine. If it can't get from Amazon, I get it from a company called Sun and Moon. They have a lot of options, is cinnamon dot coms. You can check them out as Well, so that was really easy. All I do is just take that and put it right on. You didn't need a jumping for that because it fits the in. The opening is large enough so that you don't have to worry about doing that with. So that's our beautiful A little, um, lighthouse. And then for our heart, I have another chain. Now this one also comes from sun and moon. And you can also get this. I believe through Amazon as well. And I do want to mention Amazon has with their pendants a little glass kabash on that goes on the top. And you can choose to use that or not. It's a little harder when using a good coat of resin only because it doesn't leave you a whole lot of room because the birch bark is fairly thick. But I have made them with the glass dome on top. A swell. So that was really easy, That one just Federated on there as well. And then, if you want, you could always add a little bit of charms to this. So the next section I'll just show you what I have here
9. Final details: so I thought I'd throw in a little bit of charms attached to some of these. So here's one that I did with a little tree and a little, um, a little char Mrs. Believe on it. And these come in a package. Ah, there are a lot in there. You can't remember exactly how many years the two bags that I got. There's two separate ones, and all this is for you as well. If you want to try a few of these on there, then they're they're very random. There's a lot of different ones. Um, package on the left was separate from the package on the right. This one has all the little words in there on the other. One has hearts on and trees and grapes and fish. C C. Creatures, all kinds of little things in here. So just to give you an idea, here are a few of them. I thought that was pretty neat, because you can really custom these for a special person that way. Look at all the little ones in their four leave clover. There is. Was this cat Well, cat, an owl. It was just all kinds of fun. little things. A guitar? Well, it's a crown Notes musical notes, William and Yang Swan keys, all kinds of things. So anyway, to put thes on, you're going to use that same jump ring that we use before. And I'm gonna go with the Tree of Life. Since I'm working with a piece of birch bark hair, it's appropriate, along with the words believe I'm just gonna put that jumping on any of the grab one of the larger pieces here. Use that same one that we used for our pendant. That'll work a little bit better. So you just got thread that through a little hole as a well, Now, when you put these on here, you obviously can put them so they move around your bracelet or you can put it just in this little contained area here. It's totally up to you. He could link them together if you wanted to make sure they're all facing the right direction. We're just gonna go ahead and squeeze this and close that little space up. Here we go and we'll add the ah, the other charm on there. Look at that. They need so fun. So easy. So here we have the finished piece here as well as the heart necklace. And I'm also going to give you the information on this pretty little jewelry display. Er so add that in there as well. And here is a piece that they did with birch tree with the glass kabash on on top can also share with your fellow students in the project section if you like. And if you enjoy this class and would like to Seymour, I would love to have you leave me review. I really love playing and trying new projects out. I hope you do too. And don't hesitate to ask questions if you have any and please post your pictures and your class projects in the class project section. I can't wait to see it. So I hope you enjoyed it. And it look forward to the next class with you. Take care
Kellie Chasse, 7 Years Teaching on Skillshare!
