Hello out there!

Well hello everyone! This is a bit awkward for me...the odd first post. Well I guess I should start out with a bit about myself. My name is Kelly, I live in the East Bay of California outside of San Francisco. I love movies, music, and learning history. You'll see a lot of the last two influencing my work. I'm particularly fond of Ancient History.

I've always been interested in learning new art forms, and expressing myself creatively. I started out making decorative boxes when I was in grade school. It was a form of release for me. I grew up with chronic migraines and it kept my mind busy from thinking about it. Like most of the things I do; I just winged it with making them. I would go to craft stores and get acrylic paint, scrap book paper, rub-ons, and I'd look for all kinds of trinkets to use for embellishment. They're a lot of fun to make, and I recommend it for trying! Here's an example of one of my boxes:
I don't make these boxes so much anymore. Mainly because I've become addicted to making jewelry!

My favorite and primary medium, is the wonderful material called Precious Metal Clay. The clays come in three different brands.
PMC, Art Clay, and BronzClay; and in three different metal types. Fine silver, gold, and bronze.

I prefer to use the PMC brand fine silver. An example of what Precious Metal Clay is for those who may not know; is a material made out of fine silver particles suspended in a binder and water. It looks, feels, and acts a lot like modelling clay. You can shape and manipulate this clay into designs and fire it. Once the material is sintered from firing, and finished, you are left with a design of .999 fine silver.

Here's a picture of my two first pieces I ever made from a while back. No laughing now! I used to make these roses from regular clay for my boxes:


I recently went through the Rio Grande PMC certification class, and I'm always learning.

Here are two pictures of my finish projects for the Rio class.
This is the saucer bead project. I left the strips longer and hammered them down. On the backside (not shown) the surface is filed in various directions, making it almost look like hammering on the metal.


This is my double fired ring using mold pieces and texture plates:



I also used to watch my brother and his friends who were part of the Markland Society make their own chain maille from scratch. While they made theirs for armor, I've fallen in love with using it for jewelry. I also do the typical stringing and beading.

So that's me, the nut, in a nut shell. You'll find I'm a major goof ball.