Bling Rings and Things

Made a few extra things to put on my market table tomorrow. Half a dozen rings in various metallic colours with a Swarovski crystal set in the middle. I love this particular mold, it’s from Krafy Lady and is about 1" in diameter.

I decided to make some rings because last week some sweet little 12 year old girls were looking at my jewellery and they kept placing all the pendants on their fingers imagining what they would look like as rings. So I have them to thank for the idea.



I dusted them all in Perfect Pearls to get the metallic finish and then varnished them so it doesn’t rub off.

I’m also trying my hand at designing different looks to attach to cufflinks. These are very small, just under 1/2” and think they’re maybe too small for some buttonholes. But I have some larger blanks on order which I think will work better.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it’s not windy tomorrow. The last few days have been so blowy with several huge  gusts of wind and it’s just not conducive to having an outdoor market.  As you can imagine things blow over and my props get blasted off the table if I’m not vigilant and then I’m scrambling around picking everything up off the ground. Not a good look!

More Clay Lessons

I had another lesson with Pam last week and we extruded extrusions all day. It was a lot of fun and these are just some of the resulting experiments.
The beads below were made by slicing very thin sausages of clay lengthwise (pretty tricky to slice such miniscule sausages too!) and and layering them onto a base bead. When the bead is completely covered it’s just a matter of rolling it around in your hands to flatten all the seams. I quite like the look of this and with a bit of refinement on my part  i.e. trying to get the beginning and endings of the sausages more evenly spaced this has potential.

This is a whole heap of extrusions all joined together and then very thinly sliced and laid on a tubular bead that has been curved slightly.


Same design laid (very sloppily I might add) onto both sides of a contrasting colour. Made a hole all the way through for threading (maybe earrings?)

This is a pendant I’d made awhile ago but it really needed an added something. So I extruded a long flat piece of black clay and wrapped it around the pendant to become a bezel.

We did make some filigree beads too, using packing peanuts as a base which can then be dissolved in water leaving you with a hollow bead. But I forgot to take some pictures of them. Maybe next post if I haven’t made you all fall into a comatose state from sheer boredom.

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Don’t bother reading….I’m just testing

I have a new look so I’m just testing things.

just trying to centre things.

Technorati Tags: testing,clay,heart

Extrusions

I was making some more colour mixing chips this morning and I had lots of small bits of clay left over, soooooo……seeing as how I’m having another class with Pam on Tuesday and we’re going to be exploring all things extruded, I thought I’d have a play around and familiarise myself with this neat little gadget. I’m still on the green kick with the colour mixing so to add some contrast I added some cream.

It’s quite miraculous the way the colours come out.

Very op-art sixties kind of look.

Then I thought I’d play around with black, grey, cream, white and translucent. Cut out all the disc and stuck them together.

Loaded them into the gun.  And started turning and out comes a square sausage.

Cut the log into even size pieces and stack them together.

And this is the result.

So then I got a bit ahead of myself and decided to make a pendant. After I had placed the thin slice of extruded cane onto the pendant I decided the grey pendant needed some texture but there was no way I could lift the sliced cane off. So I carefully textured around the edge….clearly I wasn’t careful enough because I’ve squished the bottom of the cane and now it’s a bit raggedy looking.

Oh well, another learning curve, but I do love this little gadget and I’m looking forward to my class with Pam for more extruder exploration.

Colour Mixing

So I decided to live life on the edge, step out of my comfort zone and try some colour mixing. Black and white was getting a tad boring and I got some fantastic colour recipes off the net so here are the results of my mixing. Being a fan of most shades of green I thought I’d start with those shades.

As you can see it’s a rather involved process and not being the most methodical or organised person I’ve had to take over the dining room table much to the family’s chagrin. Oh for heavens sake……it’s not staying there for ever……maybe just till the weekend!

I had to condition quite a few colours although I haven’t used them all yet.

Blue and yellow being the main ones.

So many parts yellow to blue……….

……and look, six different shades of green.

Once I’ve baked them I’ll write the recipe on the chip and then I’ll have them for future reference.

To all those different shades of green and I can add small amounts of black or grey or white or beach or ecru which will give me a whole lot more shades ranging from dark green to an almost grey and all shades in between.

I haven’t been making much jewellery lately as work has started to pick up quite a bit. Now the weather is starting to fine up people are on the move. Downsizing and upsizing and moving to retirement villages. They are the jobs I get the most satisfaction from. Elderley people who are so overwhelmed by the whole moving process, being able to re-assure them that by the end of the day the chaos will be gone and the house that’s full to bursting with cartons will become a home with everything in it’s rightful place all spick and span and neat and tidy. A lot like my own home……not!