Soldering Extravaganza.

Or should I say fiasco?

Here is my mess of a setup. You gotcher iron, solder coil, gel flux, and don't forget the snowman cookie tin lid. That block of filth is my sal amoniac amonac amonic.... that stuff. Gets all over the table, makes a mess, sticks to my soldering iron. But without it, the iron becomes quickly unusable.

Here's some of the mountains of things I prepped for soldering yesterday. I think the part I dislike most about soldering is the burnishing. Maybe it's b/c of my carpal tunnel, but it's a pain.
And yes, those are random chunks of book board. Cuz I'm crazy like that. And of course since I was working with those fossil oblongs, I ended up cutting the book board into similar oblongs instead of something normal like, oh, circles, ovals, rectangles. You know, shapes with names.

The other part that's not fun is trying to get the little jump rings to stay in place as you try and solder them. They often get completely coated with solder and become useless. There's one of those in the picture.  You can also see how crappy everything looks before some sanding and oxidizing.
My best idea was to create a jump ring at the end of my wire coil without cutting it off. Bend it perpendicular to the rest of the coil so I could hold it in place while soldering, then clip the wire after it's soldered. Lots of extra wire pokeys to deal with next, though. Actually, I'm not even done getting all the jump rings on. I saw a supply shop the other day that called them "jumpings".  Gave me a giggle.
Oh, quick tip on soldering: if you're getting little balls of molten solder all over your bare legs, practically searing themselves into the skin, you're doing it wrong.
(In response to my awesome commenters, 1. lol. 2. Not really. I'm kind of a safety-last type of girl. I have vinegar and salt water... I guess it cleans up the solder gunk. But look at my finished pieces- does it look like I need to be cleaning up any gunk? 
After soldering, I actually dropped a piece of bookboard in the water then went SHIT! snatched it out and patted it dry feeling like a total fool with my pants on the ground.
3. Yeah, I used to drag my feet, but now that it's all right there in my, ahem, studio, I don't as much.
4. Ya know, not at all. I was hoping for a little darkening along the edges and it didn't even do that. And yes, Raida, I am brave. Very, very brave and even heroic... yeah....)