Silver clay get together

In early September, Michele and Judy came over for a silver clay play date.  Michele had some ArtClay from a kit she bought, and we ran out to Artist & Display to get some ArtClay for Judy.  Unfortunately, ArtClay is not my favorite, but that is all A&D sells.  It was too late in the day to go farther afield.  After Michele and Judy worked with it and saw how much longer I could work with my PMC3, they decided it wasn't their favorite, either.  We had a good time, however, and we made a number of pieces.

The following pictures will show the process I've previously discussed in other blogs:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4, but each picture shows a different piece.  Yeah, I know that doesn't make sense.  But we were chatting, eating chips, passing the camera around, and trying to get Michele's torch to work.  Here's a sample of the hilarity that ensued throughout the day:

We were lucky to get any pieces done.

Here are Michele (left) and Judy (right) working with their clay:

Just to prove I was there, here's my hand rolling out some clay with my very high tech PVC pipe roller:

I set cubic zirconias and gems in some of the pieces using syringe clay.  Since the syringe clay is single use, I had to use it up.  Here is one of the pieces I made:

As I was just reminded... squiggly heart was my husband's idea.  :)  He suggested I use one of my cutters and squiggle the syringe into it so it would conform to the shape.  This was a good idea but a little difficult.  I did another one with a flower cutter which you can see in the last picture.

After the pieces dried, we filed off any rough edges.  Then it was off to the torch.  We used my fire-safe brick on top of the stove so nothing would accidentally be set aflame.  Here's Michele:

And here's a close up of the torching.  Once the piece gets to be a little "peachier" than this color, you keep torching it for about 2 and a half minutes:

Once the piece is fired, you can drop it into a glass of water to cool it quickly, using tweezers, of course.  Otherwise, you'll be running your hand under cold water for many hours.

Using a wire brush, you take all of the white residue off:

You have to be a bit careful with this step, too... those little wires like to find their way under cuticles and nails.

In Michele's kit there was a rubber block.  That got passed around as well as my camera.  It was very nice, and I may have to invest in one.  Here is one of Michele's pieces on the block.  She used a stamp I've used before - it makes a very nice impression in the silver clay.

After filing, we put some of the pieces in liver of sulfur to darken them up.  Those then got polished and burnished to brighten up the raised parts, leaving the indentations darker.  Some of the pieces we left shiny.

The last picture is of all the pieces we made.  Some haven't been completely polished yet after the livering of sulfuring, so you can see how that looks.  Judy and Michele both had small packages of ArtClay, and I had a large one of PMC3 plus a syringe, so most of the pieces you'll see are mine.

We had a lot of fun, and Judy has gone on to take an official PMC class from Irina Miech at Eclectica, and she's talking about taking the certification class in March.  I've created a monster!

Silver clay - part 4

This will be the last post for a while about silver clay.  Sorry for the delay, but I was working all weekend to finish the challenge piece I've been talking about.  I'll post pictures of it tomorrow.  I wanted to finish off this topic first.

My Mother-in-law asked in a comment from my last blog post about how long I've been making jewelry and how long it takes to make the silver clay pieces.  Instead of answering in a comment, I thought I'd post here.

I'm not sure how long I've been making jewelry.  Maybe 15 years, on and off?  I've been way more involved now that I live up here and hang out with the Loose Bead Society folk.  It's peer pressure, I'm sure of it.  Good peer pressure.  My pieces have improved quite a bit, and last night I was told (good naturedly, I hope!) that it's irritating that my challenge piece was so good for someone who has been doing this type of beading for such a short time.  I actually get frustrated when it takes me too long to figure a stitch out.  I have been crocheting for years, and I did a lot of crewel and embroidery when I was younger.  But then I always did get frustrated when I didn't "get" something right away.

Anyway - how long do silver clay pieces take?  That's hard to answer.  There are so many different steps, with the time each takes depending on what type of clay is used, how intricate the design is, etc...

The most important thing is to know what you want to do ahead of time.  Dithering and thinking while the clay is out of the package is not wise.  You have some time to work with it, but it does dry somewhat quickly.

Let me see if I can sum it up:


Design:  ??  Up to you how long it takes.
Prep: 10 minutes or so?  You want all of your tools ready before taking the clay out.
Working with the wet clay:  10-15 minutes for the Art Clay brand, maybe up to 20 minutes for PMC3.  I don't know why, but I seem to have a lot better luck with PMC3.
Drying the wet clay: 24 hours if left alone, but it could take about 20-30 minutes if you use an oven or warming plate.
Filing the dry piece to remove any burrs or sharp edges:  Could be as little as 0 minutes or perhaps 10-15 minutes.  I usually don't need to file too much.
Firing the piece:  About 5 minutes a piece - maybe a little less.  If you have a bunch of little pieces (like the hearts I used for the wedding invitations and my jewelry), you can do more than one at a time if you're careful.  I don't know how long it would take in a kiln.
Cooling the piece:  0.2 seconds if dropped in water.  :)
Cleaning the piece with a wire brush:  It depends on how intricate it is.  Something flat will take a few minutes.  The scribbly wire pendant took considerably longer than that.
Applying liver of sulfur to darken impressions:  Around 5 minutes.
Burnishing/polishing:  Around 10 minutes or so.

Wow.  That is a lot of steps, and it does take quite a while to get a piece done.  I always make more than one at once so I can keep the time down and so I can use all of the clay.

Okay - here are the last few pieces I'll show you until I get more done.  The first is a pin I made to match the pattern of the purse I was using at the time.  It's kind of a quilted pattern, and I used a toothpick to mimic it.  I had drawn it out ahead of time so I could work quickly.  I included holes for dangly bits (that's my favorite phrase lately):

In hindsight, I would have used wrapped loops instead of plain loops - every one of those dangly bits came off.  The pin is on my shelf waiting for me to make new ones.

This pin was made in a silver clay class I took at Artist & Display - a very neat art store near home.  I took the class so I could meet people, but while everyone was friendly, none of them became friends.  I got a very nice pin, though!  The teacher had a large number of molds, and this was the first time I'd used one.  I chose the cat, of course.  She said we had to embellish the piece and not just use the mold as is, so I added a little ball for a Carl Malden nose, I drew a heart on it, and I added another tail so it would have some more dimension.  I had some leftover clay, so I made it kind of a cloud for the kitty to sit on.  The clay had started to dry, so it looks kind of rough.

I like the finished product.  It's such a cute kitty!

I hope you have liked this series on silver clay.  If you decide to try it, please send me pictures of your work.  I'd love to see it!

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!

Silver clay - part 2 - the wedding

You know, if I was truly imaginative, I'd be writing this blog post from the point of view of this stamp:

because this stamp was involved in the creation of practically everything to do with the wedding.  But I'm not all that imaginative, and that probably would get annoying after about 2 sentences.

The stamp is from the "Together Forever" set from Stampin' Up! which I purchased because of other stamps in the set:  "We're engaged!", "Together Forever", and "Mr. & Mrs.".  The "&" is large, so it can be used for all sorts of projects.  I liked the flowers but didn't look at them too closely until I got started with wedding preparations.

The main thing I grew to love about this stamp was that, although there are flowers, they are not overly feminine.  There's kind of a woodcut feel about it.  I ran it by Steve, and he agreed it would work fine for our invitations.

Here's where legend takes over.... On one long drive from Waukegan, Illinois to Waukesha, Wisconsin, the bride used her back-burner thinking to try to come up with invitation ideas.  She thought it would be cute to have silver hearts hanging off of a ribbon, but where would she find hearts she'd like at a reasonable price?  Her back-burner thinking has an evil sense of humor and implanted the idea that she could make them herself using silver clay.  She was going to make her own jewelry anyway, so what was 40 more little pieces?  The groom tried to talk his bride out of it - it would be way too much work... But, no, she insisted, and the following became the focal piece of the invitations:

The stamp was used on the clay before cutting the hearts out, and I used wire to twist them on the ribbon.  That hurt, let me tell you.  My forefingers are twinging at the memory.  The rest of the invitation used the same stamp behind vellum for a softer look, and on the inside of the invitation I embossed a single impression.  Very sharp invitations, if I do say so myself.  Well, I don't have to say so myself - I got a lot of compliments, and my mother and Steve's mother couldn't stop gushing about them.

While I made the hearts for the invitations, I also worked on my jewelry.  I used the same stamp as a background for the pendant and for a few more hearts for the bracelet, and I cut out the flowers of the stamp (very carefully!) for accents on the pendant and as dangles for the bracelet and the earrings.  I used syringe type clay to affix cubic zirconias and a tanzanite gem.

Here's what I ended up with:

Here's the pendant closer up:

The bracelet:

And the earrings:

(The hooks have been moved to the earrings I showed you yesterday)

Steve was so proud of his besilvered wife that he told many people at the wedding that I made my own jewelry.  He's so sweet and makes me blush!

Excuse me, but I feel the need to take over...  This post would turn mushy otherwise.  After she made the invitations and the jewelry, did she let me rest?  No, of course not!  There were Thank You notes to stamp, too!  I was able to rest for a few months after that, but then she brought me out again for the scrapbook!  Oh, no!  She used me over and over and over again for page after page... using black ink and white ink!  I thought she would never finish, but she finally did, and fortunately she has let me retire.  Oh, I might come out for an anniversary card or something like that, but I can't imagine that would be as exhausting as the wedding preparations and scrapbook were!  I am quite proud that I have kept my sharpness throughout this process and that I haven't fallen apart.  Okay - back to sleep for me.  I need it!

Silver clay - part 1

One of the things I love to do is use my stamps to make jewelry.  When I started working with silver clay, one of the first things I did was grab stamps to make impressions into the clay.  It's a very simple way to add a texture or design.  Using liver of sulfur you can make the impressions darker, or you can leave the clay alone for a more subtle look.

What's silver clay, you ask?  (okay, I know some of you know, but a whole bunch of my readers will not, so bear with me)  This will be a very quick explanation of what it is and how to work with it.  Do not attempt without getting more complete information.  There are countless good books (see my links at the end of this post) and even videos.

Silver clay is, well, clay that turns into almost 100% silver.  Yeah, that's pretty obvious, huh?  It's very tightly sealed to keep the moisture in, and when you open the package you have to work relatively quickly.  You can roll it out like polymer clay, cut it, stamp on it, etc... with paste and syringe-type clay you can make three-dimensional objects or add gemstones or CZs (you need to check that they'll work with silver clay, though) or stack pieces on top of each other.  If you're going to use the piece as a pendant or other dangly bit, or if you're going to have dangly bits off of the piece, now is the time to put the holes in.

Once you're done with the piece, you need to dry it.  Either wait 24 hours, or you can put it in the oven or a dehydrator.  After all of the moisture is out of the piece (it is very important to have no moisture in the piece), you file it to take any sharpness off or to refine the shape a bit.  After that, it's firing time!  The best way is to use a kiln, but I've used a torch for all of my pieces.  I don't have a kiln and until recently didn't know anyone who did.

I love using the torch, because you can see the process:  the piece gets hot and the "binder" (the clay that holds the silver together) burns off.  There's actual fire!  The piece then turns a peachy color and shrinks somewhat.  After a few minutes of the peachy color, it's done.  You can let it cool naturally, but the impatient ones among us (which is probably all of us who work with silver clay) take tweezers and drop the piece in water.  That cools it instantly.

After you can touch it without screaming "Owie!", you'll see that the piece is white.  That's leftover "schmutz" from the firing process.  The typical way to clean it off is to use a wire brush.  If you put a hole in it, my recommendation is to use a pen or a burnisher (which has a point) in the hole to hold the piece down.  Else if you're not careful the wire brush will dig into your cuticles for another "Owie!" moment or 20.

When that is done, you can dip it in liver of sulfur if you want, burnish it, polish it, etc...  Based on the project I've done different things.  For my wedding jewelry and embellishments (which I'll show in a day or two), I did none of those things.  I wanted to have bright silver.  For other pieces, I liked the darker look of liver of sulfur and polishing.  It all depends on my mood (which we know can fluctuate at any moment!).

You can store any unused clay, but I end up using everything I have all at once.  I end up with some interesting pieces that way.

Wow.  That ended up a lot longer than I thought it would be.  There's just so much to this product!  It is a lot of fun, even though there are quite a number of steps, and you can make some very pretty pieces.

After all that, do you want to see some of what I've done?  Of course you do.  You wouldn't have waded through all of that otherwise!  I'll show a few today and more in the next few days (without so much chatter, hopefully).

This first piece was made with a corset rubber stamp.  The impression wasn't terribly deep, but I think it still turned out pretty well.  I gave it to my friend Sherri.

I trimmed the part that hangs down in the back - I thought that looked kinda odd in the silver.

These earrings make me wish my ears weren't so sensitive.  With white gold hooks I can wear them for short periods of time, which I guess I can live with.  I used a small square texture stamp and cut out the shape with a square cutter.  Even though I could see what I was doing through the cutter, I was pleased that the pieces matched!  I can't draw a straight line with a ruler, so I take my successes where I can.  :)

The scan of the stamp isn't that good, but you can get an idea of what it looks like.

Okay - that's enough for today.  Check back tomorrow for more!

Here are the book links I promised you.  There are so many out there, so I'm only going to list some that I can vouch for and the kit my mother and stepfather bought me that got me started: