Gingerbread!!!

Brass, that is... that wonderful toasty gingerbread cookie nearly-copper color that old brass can get when it's indifferently stored.  I scored some old vintage brass recently and decided to play with a few pieces of filigree today.  Here's how it looked before; it was rough feeling and very dark and dull-looking.

Grungy old gingerbread brass filigree

I got out the metal file and elbow grease and went to work smoothing rough edges and then rubbing, rubbing and rubbing some more... then some buffing and polishing, followed by more rubbing.  When I got the metal whipped into shape I wired the two pieces together to make this flower.

After a generous application of elbow grease

Much better, eh?

 It isn't finished, or course; it needs something else in the center, perhaps, and then I need to decide what to do with it, but isn't the metal lovely?  This is what really old brass can look like.

Check out this cool old vintage copper chain I scored, too!  It took a lot of rubbing and polishing to get this into shape, but it was worth the effort!

What do you think that flower should be?  It's large, 2-1/2" in diameter - a pendant?  A brooch?  A hair ornament?  The answer will come to me in time, but I always welcome other people's input.  Sometimes I'm too close to see.