It was patina day for me and my mom. I bought some Vintaj patinas at Bead & Button. My mom recently had an idea for changing a pin she had with patina. I recommended Vintaj so she got some patina as well. So we decided to have a patina day, and it was a ball.
I had seen one video by Heather Powers of Humblebeads about using Vintaj patina, and my mom and I watched another. Thank you, Heather!! It was wonderful to get a little view into how the patinas worked. I was especially happy to see how fast they dried. Impatience drives a lot of my design style! So, on to the show.
I did not get a before picture of my mom’s pin, but it was all black and too dark for her. She had wanted red and bought garnet. It was more pinkish than red, but my mom made it work by layering it with white gold. She had planned to leave the middle black crystals but decided to use white gold on those as well. Definitely the right decision!
The first piece I worked on was a bracelet. I had some really heavy, textured vintage chain from B’Sue Boutiques. I thought I would patina it and then add a bead dangle. After I use the verdigris patina on it and the Vintaj reliefing block to take some of the color off the high spots, I loved it so much I didn’t want to add anything else. My mom had the perfect clasp to go with the heavy chain, so I used the verdigris patina on that too. I love the outcome. Here is a picture with some of the original chain. 
This picture doesn’t show how the metal sparkles through the patina. It’s the best! My mom also used the verdigris on some brass in the form of ball chain for a multi-strand bracelet. It turned out great as well.
I had also seen a post by Candie Cooper with a tutorial for a Mod Podge cuff bracelet. I had a much smaller channel bangle form, but I decided to make something similar. My bangle was just plain silver (forgot to get a picture) so I decided to randomly paint some patina on it to make it look like old metal on the parts that would show. I combined the colors earth and white gold. I didn’t rough up the metal much (the impatience, you know) so it’s streaky. But it works for my purposes. Earlier this week my dad got a package with some great, thick paper packaging. I decided to use that as the base in the channel.
I added several coats of Mod Podge. You can see what now looks like aged metal on the inside of the bangle.
Then I added some vintage rhinestone chain. Very cute!
I also used verdigris and white gold on some vintage flat brass chain that I have plans for later. Here is a picture of some original and patina chain.
I also did just a few trials on a couple other brass pieces.
Here is the front and back of some random pieces. On the top left I used garnet and then the front of that piece has white gold. On the right I used verdigris and reliefed it back on both the back and front.
Although it has nothing to do with patina, the other project on the docket today was to put a little more interest on a leather and metal bracelet my dad made. He took a thick piece of leather and paired it with a nice metal slider. It seemed a little plain, so I suggested some rivets. My dad was impressed that I had a leather punch and a rivet setting kit. (The kit is from my card making days!) That’s just what it needed.
I leave you with a picture of my two finished bracelets together. If you haven’t tried Vintaj patinas yet, I recommend it. My mom and I plan to get more colors and do more experiments.
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