Soldered Pin

You may have seen this posted at Tatertots and Jello, but for those of you who haven't here is a neat Mother's Day gift.  For Mother's Day, I wanted to create a cute pin for my sister-in-law.  She has the two cutest kids!  George (curious George) also made the cut because he goes everywhere the kids do.  I placed a cute picture on one side of each pendant, then a colorful background on the other.  There are lots of fancy alphabets and backgrounds on Etsy that you can purchase if you want something already done, or you could use drawings of your own.

To make a this soldered pendant pin, you will need the following items:

1.       Soldering iron

2.       Metal tray & sponge with water (I found the tray at the dollar store)

3.       Small clamp

4.       Solder

5.       Foiling tape

6.       Memory glass (I used 1 inch squares)

7.       Tinning flux

8.       Printout of whatever you want in your necklace (not pictured)

9.       Q-tips (not pictured)

10.    Tweezers (not pictured)

11.    Pin (not pictured)

12.    Jewelry rings (not pictured)

You should be able to find all of these at your local craft store.  Don't worry, this is actually much easier than it looks.  Are you ready?  Plu gin the soldering iron to heat, and let's go!

Cut your paper/photos to fit your glass pieces.  You want the paper slightly smaller than the glass.  Place your two images back to back and sandwich between the glass pieces. 

Cut a piece of foiling tape about 4 and 1/4 inches.  Tape around the edge of the glass.  Flatten the foil all around the edge, and wrap on each side.  You may want to use the back of a spoon, or a popsicle stick to make sure the foil is stuck down.

Rub a q-tip in the flux, and rub a thin layer of flux over all of the foil.  This is what makes the solder stick to the foil.

Unroll some solder from the coil.  Melt solder onto the tip of the iron, then rub a thin layer of solder onto the foil.  Cover the foil completely.  (If the tip of your soldering iron is not shiny, melt solder on it, then wipe on the wet sponge)

Rub a little more flux where you want to connect your ring.  Hold the ring with your tweezers, and solder to your pendant.

Now you can add your pendant to your pin.  Repeat with the rest of your pendants, then wear or give as a gift!

Some tips:

• don’t touch anything with your fingers—it’s hot!
• don’t mess too much with the solder once it’s on the pendant
• if you have any sharp bumps, file with a nail file
• if you have any gunk on your glass, clean with rubbing alcohol
• if you have black spots on your solder, rub with steel wool
• have fun with this—it’s not a perfect craft