crafts

Bezel set gemstone rings are all the rage nowadays! Its design is simple and elegant, and highlights gemstones perfectly. It is probably the simplest type of setting to make from scratch, making it a great and economical choice for both shoppers and independent jewelers.

So why not try to make one out of PMC3? I've always wanted a bezel stone ring, but I didn't want an engagement one (I wanted something classy and timeless). I recently discovered a plethora of faceted cabochons on Etsy. They are so beautiful and are perfect for this task.

Note: If you're completely new to PMC3, I would recommend visiting my first PMC3 tutorial and going through that first to get a feel for the clay and the tools.

Finished product - labradorite ring. Looks fancy in that box, yea?

For your first time making a bezel ring, it is best to use a round faceted/non-faceted cabochon that is at least 7mm in diameter. I started out with 6mm, and it can be pretty finicky to work with even for my small hands.

materials

All of these things can be bought for fairly cheap online at sites like riogrande.com, or in craft stores with jewelry specialty.

• PMC3 of course - 6.3g is enough for most ring sizes
• Fine silver bezel wire - 1/8 x .010" (30 gauge) worked well, you only need a 1" strip or so. Make sure it's fine silver, not sterling. Example from Rio Grande
• Round cabochon of your liking - should be at least 7mm in diameter
• Metal file set - (~$10)
• Sandpaper or nail filers - various grits between 400 and 800
• Burnisher - (~$4)
• Butane torch - any ol' kitchen butane torch will work
• Olive oil
• Distilled water
• Bezel rocker / pusher (optional, ~$4)
• Mandrel

step 1 - figure out your pmc ring size

You need to know your ring size to figure out the PMC3 ring size, which is 10-12% larger because of shrinkage. Use this online conversion to help with that.

• Say you're a (US) size 4. According to the conversion chart, size 4 has a diameter of 14.86mm. Assuming PMC3 shrinks 12%, then divide 14.86mm by 88%. In other words:

14.86 / .88 = 16.88mm

• Now pick a larger size on the online conversion until the diameter shows something close to 16.88mm. In this case:

Size 6-1/4 = 16.71mm
Size 6-1/2 = 16.92mm

So our PMC3 ring size is around 6-1/2. You will wrap your PMC around that mark on your mandrel.

step 2 - prepare the bezel

• Prepare a little PMC paste by mixing a tiny amount of PMC and a tiny drop of distilled water. I have heard essential oils like lavender oil work well in the mix here too. Mix the paste until it has a yogurt like texture, adding more water sparingly if necessary. This will act as the glue for your putting silver pieces together.
• Take the fine silver bezel wire and wrap one end around the cabochon. Mark where the wire meets for cutting. Cut a little more wire than the mark to allow for filing.
• File both ends of the bezel wire so they're even and smooth. Wrap wire around the gem again to ensure it fits just right.
• Spread a little bit of PMC paste onto both ends of the bezel wire. "Glue" both ends together. If the wire bounces back apart, tighten the curve by wrapping it around something smaller, like the file handle. Make sure there is not much PMC oozing out from the inside of the bezel or it will block the cabochon later.
• Let bezel airdry or use a hairdryer/heat gun. 

step 3 -make the ring shank

I won't go through all the steps here, as that's all covered in my previous tutorial, except I didn't flatten the shank here, I left it round.

Rolling out the clay with an acrylic block. Oil surfaces to prevent stickiness.

• Cover the mandrel with some parchment paper to prevent stickiness.
• Wrap shank around the mandrel where your PMC ring size is marked.
• Using some more clay, make a flattened circle for the base of the gemstone bezel cup. Make it a bit bigger than the gem because it will shrink 10-12%.
• Glue base to the shank with water or the PMC paste.

• Let ring airdry or use a hairdryer / heatgun. When dried, carefully remove ring from the mandrel.
• At this point, carefully file and sand the ring into a style you like. You can sand the shank flat at the sides so it's not as round or add any other designs to it.
• Carefully sand the cup base so that it is flat and will hold the bezel wire without gaps in between. You can also sand the base smaller if necessary, but remember to accommodate for the shrinkage. Do this carefully as the clay is still brittle, you can continue to make refinements after firing.

step 4 - the firing

You will fire the bezel and the ring shank separately first.

• Fire the bezel for about 2 minutes (again, for basic firing instructions, refer to previous tutorial). Quench in water to cool.
• File and sand the extra bits of fired PMC smooth on the outside so that the bezel looks like one continuous piece. Do not sand too deep.
• Next, fire the ring shank. Quench in water to cool.
• File and sand the ring shank to your desired finish.
• Place the bezel over the cup base of the ring, ensuring the bezel is round and centered. Use a fine point permanent marker to trace around the bezel on the cup base (see picture below). Now sand around the cup base until you reach the circle and the bezel fits right on top of base. This part can be tedious if your base is much bigger than needed (took me almost an hour), but you will get to it!

step 5 - put it all together

• Rewet and reform that PMC paste if necessary. Spread paste along one side of the bezel loop and glue it onto the base. It is better to use more than less paste. Make sure there is not excess paste inside the bezel that will be in the way of the gem (outside is okay). Scratch off excess with a toothpick or needle.
• Apply more paste onto any areas on the outside where you can still see the seam between bezel and base. Let dry.

Bezel "glued" to cup base with PMC paste

• Fire this piece once again, for about 3 minutes. Quench to cool.
• File and sand smooth, making sure not to sand to deep and breaking the connection. File and sand the bezel shorter so it fits the size of the gem. It should not be too tall, but just enough to hold the cabochon at the sides.
• Place gem into the bezel cup. If it doesn't fit immediately, use some pliers to bend bezel into a fitting shape.
• Use the bezel rocker/pusher to push the bezel flush against the curve side of the cabochon.
• Complete any finishing touches and sand entire piece smooth. Polish with the burnisher until you reach a high shine, if desired.

There you have it! It may be tedious work making one of these from scratch, but it's totally fun and rewarding in the end!

Chinese knotting is quite an artform in traditional Chinese culture. Although gorgeous, they can be quite complex and time consuming to make too. But here's a tutorial to make a simple, but elegant one that can be used as a little charm for keychains, bags, or whatever.

You'll need some pins, some kind of foam base that can hold up those pins, and some nylon cord available at craft stores in all kinds of colors.

 
Cut about 16" of nylon cord. Pin it to the foam like so.
Use as many pins as you need to keep cord in place.

 
Fold up the bottom tail so that it overlaps the right loop. Pin in place.
Then fold the right loop over the top loop. Pin in place.

 
Fold the top loop over the left loop. Pin in place. Get it now?
Lastly, fold the left loop over the bottom tail, but string it through
the loop made in the first foldover.

 
Remove all pins and carefully pull all the loops and ends out to tighten knot.
Flip the knot over so it looks like the right picture. Place on foam again.

 
Repeat the fold-over steps from earlier all over again, with the bottom tail
and right-top-left loops. Tighten the knot by pulling all the loops again.
You should now have a chinese knot! Add decorative beads if desired by easing
it into the center of the knot. Add a dab of glue to secure in place.

 
Make some knots at the tails of the cord.
You can secure the knot by using a cigarette lighter and very briefly burn
the ends so that they very slightly melt into the knot. (see right picture)

The finished product!

If you've had rabbits as pets, you'll know that while these guys are cute and cuddly, they can be DESTRUCTIVE little furballs—especially the dwarf ones. At a moment's boredom, they can rip apart anything their teeth can get to.

While I don't want to replace their torn apart cardboard-floored cages every three months, I don't want to torture them either with many of the disgusting commercial rabbit cages around.

The problems with most commercial rabbit cages are:

• They're too damn small. Of course your bunny should have roaming time outside the cage, but during your 9-5s they'll get bored out of their minds!
• They're way expensive for what they are, and what they are-are usually no better than chicken wires.
• Hutches are impractical for indoor use and are crazy expensive. Your bunny should never be kept outdoors.

So then what's a serious crafter to do? Build one of course! I've been building mine for years. But sometimes I use plain cardboard as their floor covering, which is a bad idea. When it gets wet or there's a crack, the bunnies will shred the thing apart. So lately, I've been using shelf liners to protect the floor from chewage and pee-age. It works great! Shelf liners are the best invention ever!

Bunny-proof Bunny Cage - Version 2.0

The floor here is constructed of cardboard that was entirely covered by less than one roll of shelf liners. Make sure no seams or liner is sticking up where their teeth may get to. Then the cardboard was folded up at the sides and taped together to provide a side barrier. It is pretty seamless inside so they'll never be able to tear it up. It is also an excellent pee-proof surface, muahahaha.

I passed on the cardboard covering on the top floor, just because it's not as big a deal and there is no water container up there. There's a litterbox on both floors. Later I might build a ramp for them too (they know how to jump up).

Materials:

1. Modular cubes. You can usually find these at Bed Bath & Beyond or Target. You might need 2 or 3 sets depending on the size you want to make.
   
   From: Bed Bath & Beyond, Modular Storage Cube Set, Set of 4 for $14.99
   
    
2. Roll of Con-Tact brand Shelf Liner. They're the kind for lining your kitchen shelves. It has to be the self-adhesive type. I used the Black Faux Leather one from Home Depot, makes the cage look all luxurious. $6.48 for a lengthy 18" x 15' roll.
3. Some giant pieces of cardboard enough to line the bottom of the cage, plus a few inches to fold up the sides. Taping several smaller pieces together also work.

As for the construction, you can really arrange it however you like. It's kind of fun, it's sort of like real life Lego, in a way. In the end you'll probably spend around $50, depending on the cage size. Such a deal! For $50 at a pet store, you'll hardly get anything more than a two by one. DIY FTW.

The bunnies have settled into their new home. Notice I also tied down their food dish with thin wire. They LOVE tipping it over to protest whenever they're out of food. :|

Clasp frame purses are in a class of their own. So classy, yet so timeless—and oh so stylish! But aren't they just so hard to make?

NOT! They're actually quite easy. So easy you can easily make them as gifts and pass them off as expensive luxury gifts. Read on!

I recently picked up a mix of beautiful purse frames from 3DPatternPaper on Etsy (GREAT deals, btw):

• Some of which were the regular round-corner purse frames. To make bags with those, there's the very good de-facto tutorial over at U-Handblog.
• And then there were those rectangular ones where the fabric only attaches to the top bars of the frame. (see below) They seemed significantly harder to make at first. I was searching and searching and couldn't find any tutorials or good examples. So I made my own little design for it instead and I think it turned out really well. I love the bag!

So here are steps to share with you on how I did it. Keep in mind that's just the easiest way I figured to make it, but if there are better/other ways, I'd love to hear it!

If there's a "craft" I haven't done that I really want to do, it would have to be the lost wax process of making jewelry and 3d objects. I was browsing for some tutorials and found this really awesome on on Instructables. This guy went and carved his own engagement ring out of wax, and had a jeweler do the final casting in white gold and setting in beautiful human-cultured precious stones (without all the conflicts!).

Check it out!