The man who shares my pillow each night has a workshop filled with stuff. The other day I prowled through the little plastic drawers on his workbench and I hit the motherload — a tray of copper rings!
Luckily for me, he doesn’t have any use for them. They’re crushable washers that came with oil filters for a truck we no longer own. We struck a mutually agreeable bargain. I got the washers — he got 4 spools of Silamide I no longer use for beading.
I picked out two washers, cleaned them off, then polished them with superfine (#0000) steel wool. They took on a lovely shine.
I added black rondelles and copper coils to handmade ear wires.
Today I put two more washers on a steel block and gently flattened them with a chasing hammer. They stayed perfectly round. Tomorrow I’ll see what a riveting hammer does to them. Oooo, so much fun. 😉
Beau Dangles 
July 3, 2013 at 10:10 am
Super cool rings! Clever repurposing! 🙂
July 4, 2013 at 8:05 am
Thanks. Ya just never know where an idea is gonna pop up. 😉
July 8, 2013 at 4:43 am
They are fabulous, what a great idea!
July 8, 2013 at 8:45 am
It’s fun when quirky ideas pop up. 😉
July 19, 2013 at 7:36 am
Fabulous idea, love them!!
July 19, 2013 at 8:32 am
Thanks, D … it’s always fun to find something “beadiful” that was intended for something else. 😉