Lighting Project Reflection

I finally finished my candle holder! It took absolutely forever but I am so happy with it. With this only being my second piece, and my first piece larger than a pendant, I definitely learned a lot. First, never underestimate how long it is going to take you! Being sort of a perfectionist I figured that I would spend a lot of time on the sanding and filing, really getting it perfect, but I never thought it would take as long as it did. Because of this, if I were to do this project again I would definitely allow myself more time at the end to really finish everything off nicely, because I felt a little rushed towards the end. I also learned how rough the sanding process can be on your hands. I sanded over a period of 3 days, which left my hands this weird blackish-green color and my fingertips were rubbed raw; not so fun. Another thing that I would do differently is re-think the method that I used to apply my design to the metal. Thinking I was clever, I used sticky label paper but when I went to take the paper off, it would not budge. It took me an extra few hours rubbing the metal with alcohol to get all the sticky off. After this mishap I will definitely be using plain old rubber cement for future projects.

I would like to figure out a way to give the bent corners a nicer edge. There weren't any surfaces small enough to be able to bend and hammer all 4 sides down, so they're mostly just bent with my fingers, which is fine but, again, I'm kind of a perfectionist, so I would like a cleaner fold. I also thought about adding a patina, but after spending all this time on it I would definitely want to do some tests first. All in all I am really happy with this being my first project and can't wait to get more experience creating handmade pieces.