What's Going On?

You guys probably thought I got lost somewhere, it has been so long since I've posted!

I'm still here...and while I don't have any nifty pieces to share with you guys, I do have some great news. I haven't been creating lately because I've been too drained to...right now I'm 14 weeks into expecting our own little gem! We plan on finding out the gender as soon as we can, but we still have a while before that happens. I'll let you guys know when we find out!


I've starting to feel like making things again, and I just got a bunch of new things to play with so maybe soon I will have something to share! I'm dying to try making a bracelet, which I've never done before; especially a cuff style.

Anyways, I wanted to share our good news with all of you and let you know I'm still around and you can expect more posts soon!

Pleasanton Highland Games

On Saturday my husband and I went to the Pleasanton Highland Games. We went the year before and had a blast, and this year had been fun as well. There's so much to do and see. We spent the day wandering around watching the different sports and competitions, as well as listening to music; and of course...I did some shopping!

Here's a picture of one of the competitors tossing the caber:


This year the Scots Guard came out. They did a performance with the Marines and Isla St Clair. It was neat to see the bands side by side:
One of my favorite events is the Sheep Dog competition. Showing off what the doggies do best...herding sheep! I love this picture from last year, it looks like puppy love!

Afterwards, we attended the Ceilidh Barbecue and enjoyed an evening of music. One of the Scot Guards danced for the crowd...sadly the picture turned out blurry.


As for shopping; I got more vintage buttons to make molds from, and a lovely custom bracelet from Angus Mac Knot. I'll have to post a picture of it later.

And now for some metal clay! I decided to make a jewelry set to wear for the occasion. Here's my Scottish Thistle set. It's made from bronze and copper, and the earrings have a small lavender CZ in them. The chain is silver toned, and the ear wires are niobium.


You can expect to see an Irish version with shamrocks soon...I'm thinking of an olivine CZ instead of a lavender one. What do you think about that? :)

It Worked!

After talking with Hadar about my sintering issues with the copper and bronze, I changed a few things around. Okay more than a few things...more like everything! I bought a smaller firing pan and larger kiln posts to help with heat flow, and replaced my carbon with a different brand. I followed her firing schedule again and this time it worked. I have finally fired my own pieces!


Here are my little test 'strips' of copper from the firing:


And here are some of the pieces from Hadar's class; which she fired for me:

These are bronze with a copper inlay. The earrings are movable!


My Pictish Crescent, also a bronze with copper inlay:



My hollow bronze bead with copper leaves. It makes me think of a tree stump:


If you want to see more detailed pictures of the pieces, you can check out this link here to view my Flickr gallery. I'll be turning these into earrings and necklaces once my wire and chain order comes in on Tuesday. I'll try to post a picture or two of the finished results when I get the materials in.

Have A Great Day!

A few days ago while I had been drying a few pieces on my hot plate, I looked over to see this funny image:


It was completely unintentional, and I just had to get a picture of it. So here's to hoping you have a smile-worthy day!!

Happy Saturday!

Thursday was my first day attending Hadar's metal clay workshop. I'm loving it so far! I tried another one of her Collage of Texture pendants and this time got to use both bronze and copper. Here's a picture of the finished result:

The bail had been longer than is is now, but the right side of it had a huge dip in the side that needed to be taken out, which also meant shortening the other side...so it's got a smaller bail than intended.

I'm working on some heart earrings that will be movable, and a pendant made from bronze and filled with a copper design next.

I got to talk to Hadar about my previous firing issues, and she thinks that it's complications with heat circulation (I have a larger pan), and that the carbon may be bad. So some time in the future I'm going to try replacing these and re-running test pieces to see if there's a difference.

This was my first time ever going to Berkeley. It's a neat little town. Oh and sorry to my friends who expected silly hippy pictures, there were none along the way...but LovEvolution (seriously, when are they gonna find a name that works?) will more than likely have it's share of them!

Excited!

Just a short post today. I signed up for classes with Hadar Jacobson, and tomorrow is my first day! I'll post an update tomorrow on what we're learning, and maybe some early pictures!

All I can say is I'm really excited!

No Luck Yet

Hmm, well on Saturday I gave the other firing time a try. I knew as soon as I pulled the pieces out and held them that they were not sintered; they were so weightless. I did some dissecting on them anyways, and I do have a few theories. My first possible theory is that they were not dry enough before I fired them. I usually use a hot plate or a hair dryer to dry my metal clay pieces, but I did not use any heat source and I just let them dry over time. Even though they seemed dry.

I feel like I'm back in grade school, doing science labs with this stuff, lol! 'Measure, record, record, record....'








Although they did not turn out right, I wanted to show you guys the colors that did appear! You can see some of the problems with the pendants in the pictures...look at how much the floral one in the middle of the top picture had warped in shape. Oh and hey in the corner of the last photo you can see some of the unsintered 'dust' that fell out of some of the pieces. Oh well, back to the firing board! :P

Today I am cleaning my desk area, it's such a wreck. I know there's a desk under it somewhere!

More Copper!

I've been busy making more copper pieces to fire. My poor leaf ring has had way too much damage to salvage. I'm glad the little wyvern coins turned out at least!

So here's a picture of my next round of greenware, which I will fire tomorrow. I think I am going to give Hadar's firing time a try this round. The last time I fired the copper I had used the time recommended from the pamphlet that comes with the clay.


About the pieces:
The top two were created from using Dynasty Stamps. The cross was originally flat. The design itself had been completely dried, and I had added another layer to the bottom of it to make it thicker. I went out to a quick lunch and came home to a cross that had curled upwards! I loved the way it warped though, it gives it more depth. The rest of my pendants after that though were weighed down with my thickness plates to keep them from warping as they dried.

The second row has another ring to try firing without leaves. The third pendant in the row is one of those sandwich pendants (is there a name for them? My hubby called it a 'sandwich' so sammich it is!). I used a leaf I picked as the imprint.

I am not fond of the first pendant in the third row...it's a hideous mess! I wanted to try out my new pillow and bail templates, and I just threw together something I could try them with while being able to test the clay. I made a mold from a sliced shell a while back, and that's what that 'peace sign' looking thing is in the corner. We'll see how it looks fired...lol...

The last two are favorites. I recently got Hadar's clay books, and I wanted to give one of the project a try, so the patchwork one is my attempt. The last pendant in the third row is from a floral texture sheet.

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I didn't want to go overboard with how long it took to make things this time in case I had another fail. The surprise for me is that I actually found that by doing that, I challenged myself more...I tried things I normally wouldn't (and probably shouldn't again! lol).

Fired Copper, First Try.

Hi guys!
As I promised, here are the pictures from my firing results. First, here's different pictures of the larger pendants with their sanding and carving completed before loading into the kiln. These have better lighting for you to see them than the ones I posted yesterday.


And here they are post firing:



Eek, yup, I had breakage. Both pieces looked fine when they came out. The leaf pendant felt a bit light to me, and I started to suspect it wasn't sintered so I tried polishing it a bit to see. The top leaves are fine and strong, but the other side broke off into powdery half sintered? messiness...there's also a small visible ring on the band where I had originally thought to put a stone in and changed my mind, and had refilled it. I had this blended and filled in well, and had checked it to be sure it...but I can notice it now post firing. Part of the inside of the ring is flaking too. The bails of the K are weak and one snapped, I also managed to get a granule of the carbon wedged into his snout (lol) and it caused a hole. I used the highest firing schedule recommended.

So come tomorrow or friday, I'll fire the repairs and see how they go. I think it will be just fine though.


Oh, and I didn't get to post pictures of the little wyvern coins yesterday; but I whipped up a few of these teeny guys to go with the test batch as well. I love how the shrinking really brought out their textures. They're cute! I can't wait to start assembling them. I see blues...greens....reds....heraldic looking colors. (okay, I see blue with anything...I'm biased!)

Once I have a working torch again (mine went wonky on me the other day, seriously...whoosh!), I'll try using it on them for testing out the rainbow patina. I'm really enjoying the color of the copper too.



I do recommend if you play with the copper, or bronze that you buy a scrubby nail brush and use it when you're cleaning your hands. Both clays are sticky-like and the copper leaves a slight black film that is a bit hard to remove otherwise. I've been using a brush and a pea sized amount of a hand scrub.

Copper Clay, First Few Days.

I've been busy the last couple weeks playing around with making photopolymer's, and trying out the new CopprClay!

It took me several tries to get the photopolymer's to work, and I've finally found what works for me. I started playing with the copper and I'll be firing the pieces tomorrow. Here's a few pictures of what my last couple weeks have looked like:

This is the second part of the photopolymer process where I am curing the front of my image plate. It's almost ready for the scrubbing out part where I'll remove the excess liquid to reveal the impressed stampings.

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Here you can see a few of the photopolymer's cut out and ready for clay! I decided that I'll try them with the new CopprClay. Sorry for the mega eyesore of orangeness going on, I grabbed the mat to work with and didn't consider the hideousness for the pictures at the time.

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Tada! My first impression done with the photopolymer. Now I just need to clean up the design and the bails.

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More CopprClay: I decided to make a doughnut pendant with leaves. After drying and sanding the base of the pendant I started adding leaves. I prefer working with dry clay, so I cut out the leaves and curled them into the shapes I wanted to help start out the design. Once they were dry, I started carving and sanding them into the shapes I wanted.


You can see the clay has darkened with oxide from working on it a while. The leaves are coming along, they still need a bit more sanding and touching up. I don't know how much darkening of the clay I should be worried about, but I'll sand it some more to remove what I can. I'll use the higher firing time on the pieces due to the size of the leaf pendant.

I'll post more pictures of the finished pieces when I can...whether they survive the firing or not.

The clay is definitely interesting to work with. It has good give and bounce when dry. I've had some problems with it, but I'll have to experiment some more with it before I figure out what the culprit is.

Those of you who are metal clay artists, have you had a chance to play with one of the copper clays yet, and what has it been like for you? :)

Cross your fingers for me tomorrow!

Playing With Layouts

Hi guys!
I decided a while ago my blog needs a design overhaul, and so today I'm finally fixing it up. It's still a work in progress.

This week I plan on cleaning up my workspace (make sure there's no silver sneaking about, which with me it always is...) to start working on bronze and copper clay.

So whatcha think of the layout?! Do you like it? Any suggestions? :)


Lotsa love!
- Kel

Busy Busy Busy

Wahoo! CopprClay has just been released! I'm so excited about trying it out. As you probably guessed, CopprClay is a copper form of metal clay. One of the many things I like is that the copper is supposed to fire faster than the bronze does. I've heard that it's about a 2 hour firing time (depending on the thickness of the piece being fired), which is nice compaired to 8-9 hour firing time.

So tonight I ordered 400 grams of the CopprClay, and lots of wire for embedding. I've been playing around with the Photopolymer Plates lately and I've finally got a few crisp ones that work! I'm planning on making some illuminated Celtic letters, and I think the bronze and copper will be gorgeous with these. I also have some Pictish symbols to try out.

I've also been busy working on some things to go into my Etsy store. Here's a peek at a few upcoming pieces:


Epona: This is a Celtic knot pendant, that came from a vintage button mould. It features three horses and Celtic knots. I used a liver of sulfur patina to give it the black coloring. Epona is the name of the Celtic horse goddess popular in the Roman Empire (Surprise!). I thought the name was befitting for such a horse pendant.

When I was little, my mother had a rose ring that I always borrowed from her jewelry box and loved to dress up with. These lovely roses come from the a mould of that vintage ring, each one slightly different :)


You can see more sneeks of my upcoming Etsy items by clicking here!

Photopolymer Goodness

I'm so excited my package of goodies arrived today! I've ordered a few more tools, more clay (woo whoo!) and a Photopolymer Kit. Uh oh...wait..a what?!

Photopolymer Plate Kit! This will allow me to use an image and turn it into something similar to a rubber stamp; for use as a texture or design on my clay. This is great since now I can take my own drawings and turn them into these texture plates. I love to doodle and draw, and the majority of my pieces are sketched out before I even start creating them. I've been reading up on these a lot lately, and I'm rather nervous because it sounds like there's a lot of trial into learning how to work with these at first. I foresee a lot of messy first tries!

My hubby and I went over to Lowes after my physical therapy, and I got a lamp to use with the kit. It takes a normal 60w lamp, and the only ones we have are in the bedroom and are upright lamps that wouldn't reach over the plates. I'll post more on these once I'm done experimenting.

Curious about my current PMC works? You can check out this page here for a sneak peek of my original Hugin & Munin pendant. These feathery guys aren't done yet. I intend to add Aura22 and give it a proper polishing. I'll post a finish picture after completion!

Have a great day!!

I did it!

So I've been busy with classes lately.

A few weeks ago I took a small Gemology class over at The Crucible in Oakland. I highly recommend taking some sort of a class on Gemology even if you're not into jewelry making. It will help you to know what little basic things to look for when you are buying stones, and help you with attempting to determine if something is real or fake. Plus, it's fun to look at those gorgeous gems up close!

The other class I took was Fabrication 1 at Revere Academy in San Francisco. I'm slowly trying to take classes to incorporate traditional jewelry making into my PMC and also go for a Jeweler's diploma. My arms and fingers are still recovering from all that work! It was a 24 hour total workshop and I learned a lot of great things that I can already use. My mind is racing with ideas already!

Here are some pictures of the projects from Fab 1. Some of these are not completely finished. The point of the class was to leave with knowledge on how to make the items and the techniques that go into them; so finishes were not a priority.


The projects were a domed and pierced earring set (only one is shown here), a square banded sterling silver ring, a round nickel ring, a half round 14k gold ring (not shown, it needs major finishing...once done it will look like a traditional wedding band), and an Onyx bezel pendant.
Now...to recover and create! Muhahahaha!

Rainy day update

It's raining out. I love the sound of rain! My hubby and I went to the book store today to get new books, I wanted to see if there were any new clay books I had been eying while I was there as well. My foot is still bugging me, but it's slowly getting better.

I'm almost out of hand conditioner for my clay, so I put in an order yesterday for some more along with some new texture plates and templates. I'm so excited about starting on a few new ideas I had. Right now I am working on a Hugin & Munin pendant. I'm very big on history and mythology, and I wanted to start a line of pieces that are influenced by some of my favorite things. I'll post pictures and a story of my raven pendant once it's complete. Right now I am debating on coloring ideas for the birds. I want them to look seperate.

I picked up an apothecary jar to throw my shaping tools in (I need organizing ideas for my stuff; which is just all over the place!). Cleaning and organizing my workspace is high on my To Do List. One of my cats, Rory; loves to do some cleaning himself. That is...he likes to get on my desk and knock everything off. He has an obsession with knocking things over, and he waits until you're not looking. I moved all of my clay stuff to a desk in the other room and now that he knows that desk is used for important stuff, he gets up there and knocks it all off. It drives me bonkers. He knows that...and he loves it. I swear all I need to do one day is stick a Swiffer pad on him and he'll do his own cleaning. He's quite a jester.

Picture Day!

Things have been c-r-a-z-y with the holidays passing!  I made jewelry for ladies of our family, which I learned wasn't the best thing to do with just a few weeks before Christmas.  I think next time, I'll get a head start...say....July?  

I only got to take pictures of one of the pieces, and I have another but I can't post it yet!  

So here's a glimpse at the part of the fish I spoke about a while back.  I decided to do a simpler version of the Infinitely Fishy pendant for my Step Mom for Christmas, and this is it.  I left off the infinity bubbles that were causing problems for me when I made this one.  I'll be finishing that pendant at another time. So here are the pictures!  We'll start with the pre-firing of the enamel.  Here's Mr.Fishy getting ready for enamel firing...

 

This is the first time I've ever enameled, and boy was I nervous.  The fish turned out alright, I had to do another firing after the first one to fix some of the enamel that pulled to the middle.  Then I had to do a flash firing becauseI had to remove some of the enamel that drifted, and I caused scratching in the enamel (Oopsie!).  Which brings me to the question...do they make smaller clean up tools for enamel?  Must investigate!  The ginormous alundum stone doesn't bode well for teeny tiny crevices.  

Mr. Fishy here was supposed to be a Champlevé pendant  but the scales ended up being barelyvisable through the enamel since I was heavy handed on the colors.  Next time I suppose I should do less colors and use flux over the top?  I guess it's not bad for a first try!

~*BronzClay*~

The next pictures are from my first bronze firing.  They turned out a lot better than I had anticipated for my first try.  I had one break, which was the shield.  I did have bubbling on the backings of all but the cat pendant... I have to play around with the firing times more to fix that.  I don't know if it's coincidence or not, but the one piece that fired perfectly had a hollowed out back. and that was the also the cat.  The other pendants are very rough even though I had finished them to be smooth, which I am not sure if it's normal for the metal to do that, or if it was also a firing issue.  Especially if they were overfired.

I used moulds for all of the bronze pieces here.  The shield and the thistle pendant are from KraftyLady's moulds, the cat is from an Amco? mould, and

 the ornate flat pendant is from the cool new Dynasty moulds.  You can find the Dynasty moulds at Rio Grande, and I highly recommend them.

The other mentioned Bronze pieces: