Patinated bronze tags

I'm on a blogging streak right now, posting every day! Showing you my patina mishap yesterday, I thought I'd show something that went more according to plans today. These are the same bronze tags I've used in some of my previous patina posts, including the one on peanut oil patinas.


The first pair of tags (above) were buried in jar of old tea leaves -- from teabags saved from a tea dying session -- soaked in spirit vinegar (ättika 24 %). They were left in there perhaps 48 hours or less. They were covered in verdigris that I washed off to reveal the pattern underneath.

[No pic of it, but I did use the same sealer as in the valkyrie stamping on the back of one of the tags to see if I got the same result: sure enough, this morning the back was  covered in green verdigris. So it's a good sealer if I want to amplify the patina, but not so much if I don't (as with the valkyrie). It doesn't behave like this on heat patina'd stampings, though, so I can keep using it there. One more reason to add a spray sealer to my shopping list.]

For this sample, I mixed some ättika in a heap of salt and placed the tags on top. After 24 hours they started to form verdigris around the edges, but nothing like in the buried patina. I then placed some salt on the top of the tags, which created the patterns by next day. This solution is too wet for verdigris to form if buried: by placing the tags on top I got more of a fumed patina than anything else.

PS! Don't forget to help choose a twin bead design to write a free tute on -- check out this post!