Antiqued silver jewellery- oxidising with Liver of sulphur

(Some bits & bobs I have been oxidising this week)

How to make your shiny new silver jewellery look old.

If you are anything like me then your preference would be vintage looking, blackened jewellery, opposed to shiny, sparkly, bright new silver.

When I make jewellery I use mostly vintage pieces, I do sometimes need new parts, and to merge them all together, make them look like they belong, I have to artificially age them. There are two ways to do this (that I know of). The first one, the "natural" way, using eggs, I have been using this method for a while, only because I just never got round to buying the antiquing solution, and to be totally honest, the results aren't that great, it takes longer, it's a little more messier, the egg tends to get stuck in the holes of beads and the results are quite uneven. Here are the instructions anyway, just in case you would like to give it ago.

Oxidising with eggs.

Basically all you need to do is, hard boil an egg, one egg would be enough to do a few small items, chain, clasps, jump rings, wire etc, when the egg has boiled, remove the shell, put the egg into a plastic bag, and while it is still warm, put your jewellery findings inside, squish around until they are completely coated, wrap up and leave, check back often until they reach the desired colour, then rinse with warm soapy water.

(Liver of sulphur solution)

Now pictured above, the magic solution, the other day I thought to myself, just buy some! so I did! It is always worth doing a shopping list and buying more items, to get the benefits from the postage costs, it really bugs me when the postage costs more than the product :(

So, my stuff arrived and antiquing I did go! If you stood still long enough, you got antiqued! looks like someone got to Mr C before me! (he-he, ssshhh).

I love this product!

It comes in a little bottle 7cm tall including the lid, think there is about 6mls, but it goes a very long way, it will last for ages, I wouldn't buy more than one, as it only has a shelf life of about twelve months.

Just one thing though, it absolutely pongs, stinks to high heaven, like five million rotting eggs, yuk! ok, maybe I'm going a little OTT, but it does smell bad :(

What to do with your Liver of sulphur.

Get yourself a small bowl, I used a cereal bowl, half fill it with warm water, to achieve a black patina add ten drops of the solution, drop in your silver and swirl it around. If your LOS is freshly mixed it should turn black in a matter of seconds. There are several colour changes before you get to black, all stunning in their own right, gold, copper, purple, blue, blue-grey and a kind of greenish tone, all rather gorgeous.

Use a weaker solution to slow it down and catch the different colour changes. When you reach your desired colour, rinse your jewellery in warm soapy water, and away you go, I like to give mine a very very very light buff with a Goddard's silver cloth to give it a little shine, don't buff it too much though!

Liver of sulphur can be used on sterling silver, copper and precious metal clay, but I also used it on metal and silver plate and it turned out just fine, but do this at your own risk!

You can buy LOS from various craft and jewellery suppliers on the net, I got mine from Kernowcraft.

Happy antiquing.

(Some vintage jewellery, that has oxidised naturally over time)

I just had to pop this picture in, its of one of my favourite brooches, you may well be seeing it soon in something special :)

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