Saturday, April 30, 2011

Art from the Firepit

No, I haven't taken up blacksmithing - I don't think I have the forearms for it!
This is how I patina the altered mint tins I make. I discovered this method when I was using the recycled ones. I was looking for a way to take off the factory paint and found that burning them left behind an interesting patina. I ran out of those tins and found some brand new, unpainted, ones on eBay. I have been fiddling around with those to see if I could get a similar look when they didn't start out with paint.
A tiny fire in my woodstove didn't work very well since there was no paint to burn. Today was DRY for a change so I made a more substantial fire in the backyard firepit and Wa-La! Not quite the same as the painted ones but very satisfactory. I think I might have melted my hairspray a little bit.

5 comments:

Cheryl ~ ZanyMayd said...

Your so clever.... What a great idea,
for me it would be any excuse for a camp
fire, even if it's minus the Camping!

Annette said...

Wow, never ever would I have thought of doing that. Just shows where there's a will there's a way!

Cami @ Creating Myself said...

We were just talking about doing this to tins on our drive home from BirdSong! Good to know it actually works before I attempt it!

Your Pink Stuff sounds yummy! If I cook for Mother's Day (but I probably won't! LOL) I'm gonna make some...thanks for sharing the recipe Katherine!

cathy said...

Can't imagine what my husband would say if I tried this one! Very creative idea.

Jill said...

I was at a farm auction on Sunday and lots of great old junky stuff...but this beat all. One guy said to the auctioneer "I'll give you 2.50 for choice out of the burn pile" so we all walked over to the pile and the bidding went up to 7.50. I was laughing with everyone else, but I'm telling you I was really jealous that I hadn't been looking in the pile first to know what good treasure was in there! I didn't get to see the guy go dig in there either, bummer!