Mosaic Shell Pendant

My cousin's birthday is near so I make her this pendant. This is my first jewerly project so there are some imperfection. It still look nice though.

I'm very sorry because I didn't take much photo in this project.

- A sheet of metal + some solder

- Shells (You need different kind of shell to make the mosaic effect)

- Small glass dome (this is the hardest piece to find, I got mine from an old pendant)

- Silicone and epoxy

- Some basic tools like a copy saw, pilers,...

The base is simply a ring soldered on a sheet of metal, after that solder on a loop to put a chain through. The ring should be a little bigger than the glass dome. After that I polished the metal so it look better (you can do this after everything is done)

I won't go into details on this step, you can check out this video for the process: .If you don't know how to solder, you can read Mrballeng instructable: https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-solder-amat... . You should check out his project too, he is very talented.

Here's the fun part. First you need to design the mosaic pattern, then pick out different type of shell and cut into the pieces, after that sand down each of the surface till it's flat. Remember to mark each pieces or you'll mess up the pieces.

After everything is cut and sanded, glue them face down on a sheet of plastic and check the fitting. Feel free to do a few sanding to adjust the size.

Once the glue dried, mix up some epoxy and spread them, fill in the gap if you have them. You don't have to worry about the bumps

One way to do it is by sanding. If you have a dremel like me, this is how you do it:

First take a sanding guide attachment and glue 2 pieces of wood on the side, making a rail. Then hot glue the shell pieces face down on a piece of wood. After that's done, attach on a cutting wheel, set the height, turn on the dremel and side the shell piece on the rail, cutting the execess and make the shell piece flat. I'm sorry but I can't seem to explain this in a more coherence way.

After that, fit in the shell piece using some silicon

Add more silicone on the surface, put on the dome and squeeze out exess. Remember not to put too much pressure or the glass dome will break (as shown in the picture).

For this pendant, you cannot press on the outter ring to hold the glass dome because water can still leak inside. That's why I have to use silicone.

That's it for this instructable. I am very sorry since I don't have much time to right a detail instructable.

Anyway hope you enjoy it.