Monday 29 April 2013

Class Fun Part 2


A couple of blogs ago I spoke about a Metal Clay class I had taken, mentioning at the end that the piece for a bracelet was part of what we made during the class.

It wasn't ready yet as we ran out of time during class but I promised a picture when it was ready.  Well, I finally completed it and here it is.  For a first try it came out not too bad.
 




The gemstone is a Rainforest Jasper rectangle.  I made the gemstone caps, tube caps, toggle and toggle bar from copper clay.  Even the loops for the toggle and clasp are made of copper clay.  The tubes were bent with a pipe bender and handmade 3 mm copper beads were used to get the best fit.



I did not quite do enough smoothing around the handmade beads caps and didn’t get my toggle square but otherwise pretty good.



I decided to add some slight texture to the curved tube.  The texturing is very light so it doesn't detract from the bracelet appearing. I found that the curved tubes originally were just too shiny as is when compared to the remainder of the copper pieces.   They have naturally aged since the pieces were first made making the difference less obvious by the time these pictures were taken.

Sunday 14 April 2013

Jewellery Playing – but First Tax Time


We all have to do it but I don’t think most of us really appreciate it. 

Tax time = File tax returns.  I file tax returns for 5 people, both my parents, my son, my husband and myself.  This has kept me busy over the last little while and I’m still waiting for some of my son’s info to finish.  Computer problems a few weeks ago did not help but what do you do? 

In the meantime, here’s a few jewellery playing “experiments” for you to check out.  What do you think?


Lariat with Rectangular Glass Beads, Round Wood
Beads, Aluminium Chain


Choker with Glass Heart, Silver Plated Beads
and Wire, Stainless Steel Neck Wire
Early flowers have started coming up in the front and back yards.  I’ll be looking to them for inspiration.  Should be fun!

Wednesday 10 April 2013

Class Fun


Last week I took a 2 day course on working with Copper Clay, specifically Metal Adventures Copper Clay.  What a fun 2 days! 

We were a class of 8, led by Wanaree Tanner, an amazing young woman from the US.  Wanaree is a metal clay master and not only produces some of the most stunning and fascinating jewellery and works of art.  You can find out all about Wanaree here!

Amazing product lines!  Tiny bits of metal are mixed with a special organic binder, formed into different shapes and items, textured, and then fired…heated to the point where the organic binder is burned off and the molecules of the metal bits are aligned together. 

When everything works out the final product is beautiful.  Metal Clay comes from several manufacturers and many types of metals.  I’ve been working with metal clay silver, copper and bronze.  The items made in this class are the best by far.

Here’s the bail I made for a kinetic pendant.  The gemstone captured in it is Bronzite.  Wanaree created the instructions for this bail, and I chose and made the overall shape and pattern applied to it.  The bail is made in a way that allows the gemstone to spin inside it.



The second item is a lovely bracelet.  We learned how to make all the components and how to put them together.  Unfortunately we ran out of time in class so I still have to put mine together.  First I need to do some polishing on the individual parts to remove a little bit of scale (something copper develops when it is fired) before I put it together.  A picture for this one will come soon.