A bit of this and a bit of that...: Faux mother of pearl finish, jewellery design contest entry

Divya at jewelsofsayuri is having a design of the month contest . This month's theme is Natural whimsy, contestants are to send entries which use mother of pearl or shell components. Contestants can also use fake mother of pearl or shell components. I was really bummed at not finding out about last month's contest which had the theme 'crystals and their sparkle'. I mean crystals are good, crystals are pretty and most importantly I have boxes of pretty crystals sitting in my craft stash.

Now on the other hand, mother of pearl or shell components are not stuff that I have in my stash. Getting them would mean craft shopping, which here in Bangalore more or less means a trip to avenue road, which with a 6 month old baby can be a major PIA. So I decided I did not want to go hunting for mother of pearl elements, Instead I decided to modify a bone bead that I had with some nail enamel/polish and decoupage glue to give it a faux mother of pearl finish. Using the bead and some fake pearls I had, I made an illusion necklace.

Here's how to create the faux mother of pearl finish - Supplies needed: Nail enamel in gold, silver and ivory (I used real cheap ones that were about 10 rs a bottle), decoupage glue, a flat bone bead (I think this technique should work on other material too)

Here is the 'before' picture of the bead

I first applied a base coat in ivory, I guess one could change the colour of your base coat to get a dyed mother of pearl finish.

Dabbed on some streaks of gold.

While the gold is still wet blend in using the silver polish. I thinned the silver polish with lots of thinner/acetone to make it blend well. The key point to note here is not to let the gold polish dry. As you can see in the picture above, by the time I had the pictures taken, the gold bit had dried. I had to start over.

There you have it, your faux mother of pearl finish.

To protect the finish, let dry and apply the decoupage varnish. Apply several coats according to manufacturer's instructions.

Some tigertail, fake pearls and lots of crimping later, this is what I had. I had a tough time trying to photograph the sheen of the pendant. This is all what I could manage :-(