Today I am prepping my silver studs to get ready for a cushion application marathon which will be commencing in a few days. When I first brought home my studs I didn't really like how shiny and 'new' the silver finish looked. I set about experimenting with them to achieve a more aged look. It turns out that if you put silver studs in a fire for a certain amount of time you get a beautiful oily charcoal finish. I love it, especially because each one is slightly different which I think adds a lot to the finished product.Above you can see what the silver looks like when I buy them.
This is our patio chimney and it is where I do most of my burning. Because in Puerto Vallarta they don't have a recycling program we burn all of our paper goods as fire wood (which is why you can see a toilet paper roll sticking out here).
I used to make tinfoil packets to burn the studs in like hot potatoes but often the tinfoil would get so hot it would melt and rip open resulting in many hours of me picking tiny studs out of hot ash. Last week V went to the 25 peso store and bought me this large metal sieve. Much better...
New problem - metal sieve does not protect the studs from the ash...
Voila! Dusty but beautiful metal studs ready to be applied.
A close up of the finished product from the Good Things Collection.
