Friday, July 16, 2010

Silver clay - part 3

Today's post on silver clay is about 4 other pendants I've made.  Three used stamps, and one was an experiment that worked quite well.

Pendant #1 was one of my earlier projects.  I used a large background stamp - Swirls and Blossoms from Stampin' Up!.  This shows just part of the stamp and the pendant:


Although it's cute, I wouldn't use this stamp again.  It's far too large (around 4.5" x 5.75") and unwieldly.  I wasn't able to get a really good impression.

Pendant #2 has almost an "ancient scroll" look to it.  I used All Night Media's Mendhi Swirl Border stamp and folded the top over for the bail.  I accidentally bent it when it was still a little wet which left a crack, and there are a few cracks around the bail.  I was mortified at first (yes, mortified), but now I like the cracks.  They give the piece more character.


The next two pendants were used with clay left over from the "planned" projects.  Like I mentioned in part 1, I'm not one for storing clay.  It just doesn't work for me, and I like experimenting with what can be done with the leftovers.

Pendant #3 is one of my favorite pieces.  The shape is very organic, the stamp impression is wonderful, and the liver of sulfur "took" wonderfully.  The stamp is Sunshine Daisy from Hero Arts.


Pendant #4 doesn't use a stamp.  Yes, I'm shocked, too!

My last few posts mentioned syringe-type clay.  In the pieces I showed you yesterday, the syringe-type clay was used to adhere pieces together for layering and for setting the CZs and the tanzanite.  Unlike regular silver clay, syringe-type clay is single-use.  When I was done setting all of my stones, I just went nuts to use up the rest of the clay.  I did embed a few stones in the pendant, and I was lucky that there was a little loop that I could string onto a necklace.


I have gotten quite a number of compliments on this piece, and it was just "scribbling"!  Cleaning this pendant after torching it was very difficult.  There are a lot of little crevasses.  It was worth every poke in my cuticles from the wire brush, though!

A note on the necklaces the pendants are hung on:  They're simple.  Almost too simple - either just a string of seed beads or a string of seed beads or bugles with some accent beads.  My goal was to let the focal piece take center stage.   Based on the number of complements I've received, I'm guessing my choice was correct!

2 comments:

  1. How long have you been making jewelry, and how long does each piece take to make?

    Sewsoon

    ReplyDelete